Comparative study of holographic recording in cholesteric and nematic azo‐containing side‐chain polymers

Abstract

For the first time a comparative study of holographic recording in planarly oriented films of nematic and cholesteric azobenzene‐containing polymers was performed. The influence of temperature and light intensity on the values of diffraction efficiencies of holographic gratings was investigated. The kinetics of grating relaxation at different temperatures was studied. It was shown that the helical supramolecular structure of cholesteric copolymer causes a significant decrease of the diffraction efficiency in comparison with the one observed for the nematic state of the homopolymer.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Russian Foundation of Fundamental Research. The authors wish to thank Dr. Th. Frese for technical assistance and Dr. N. Boiko for cholesterol‐containing monomer synthesis. A.B. gratefully acknowledges the research fellowship provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and INTAS (Ref. Nr. 03‐55‐956).