Abstract:
Photosensitive films for holography were fabricated through homogeneous mixing of poly(vinyl acetate), 2-(2-biphenylyloxy)ethyl acrylate, an epoxide compound, and a photoinitiator in dichloromethane, followed by blade coating and drying. Photopolymerized holographic plastics were then prepared using the principle of holographic photopolymerization-induced phase separation under coherent laser irradiation. The influences of three epoxides, namely, 2-biphenyl glycidyl ether (BGE), ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (GDE), and glycidyl phenyl ether (GPE), on the performance of photopolymerized holographic plastics were systematically investigated using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. Results indicate that the diffraction efficiency of holographic plastics can be significantly enhanced with an augmentation of the epoxide content. However, this would be decreased when the epoxide content is too high. When the mass fraction of BGE reaches 24%, monochromatic holographic plastics in blue, green and red colors can be achieved respectively. These plastics exhibit excellent diffraction efficiencies of over 97%, high visible light transmittance of above 80%, and low haze of under 3%. A full-color holographic plastic was also fabricated, exhibiting diffraction efficiencies of 65%, 56%, and 46% for blue, green and red colors, respectively, with visible light transmittance higher than 70% and with a haze of 2%.