Influence of the photopolymer properties in the fabrication of diffractive optical elements

A wide range of chemical compositions are possible to design photopolymers. These materials are also appealing for diffractive and holographic applications due to their capability to modulate the refractive index and/or the thickness when illuminated. Some of the most interesting applications for photopolymers are the optical data storage, security systems, surface relief photo-embossing, diffractive and refractive optical elements, holographic elements, solar concentrators, optical detectors and hybrid optoelectronic 3-D circuitry. Looking for an optimized chemical composition for each application many different photopolymers compositions may be needed enabling a variety of materials properties: materials with low or high rates of monomer diffusion, low or high values of shrinkage, long or short length of polymer chains and low or high light absorption. In parallel many models are presented in order to predict the photopolymers recording and the post exposure evolution. In this work we use one of these experimentally checked models to study the influence of the material characteristics in the final diffractive optical element recorded in the material. We study the changes in the surface relief and in the refractive index in order to understand the importance of each material property in the final diffractive optical element recorded.