3D behaviour of photopolymers as holographic recording material

Research dealing with models to predict and understand the behaviour of photopolymers have generated many interesting studies considering a 2-dimensional geometry. These models suppose that the photopolymer layer is homogeneous in depth. Using this approximation good results can be obtained if the thickness of photopolymers is less than 200 μm. However, it is well known that Lambert-Beer's law predicts an exponential decay of the light inside the material. In recent years intensive efforts have been made to develop new holographic memories based on photopolymers. For this application the thickness of the layer is increased, usually to more than 500 μm, and Lambert-Beer's law plays a significant role in the recording step. The attenuation of the index profile inside these materials has been measured, showing that it is an important phenomenon. This attenuation limits the maximum effective optical thickness of the grating and shows that the 2-D models can not be applied in these cases. For this reason in this work a 3-dimensional model is presented to analyze the real behaviour of the photopolymers and study the variations in the index profile in depth. In this work we examine the predictions of the model in the case of a general dependence of the polymerisation rate with respect to the intensity pattern, and the effects of varying the exposure intensity are also compared in 3-D cases. Finally, the limitation of the data storage capacity of the materials due to the Lambert-Beer law is evaluated.