Photopolymer Materials

Over the past ten years we have been involved in the quantitative characterization and improvement of photopolymer materials. Photopolymers are primarily organic material layers whose properties change when illuminated. The resulting changes in the material density (3D volume refractive index) or layer surface profile are often employed to modulate optical replay beams (read-out). Such materials have the advantage over many other optically sensitive materials that they are inexpensive, relatively easy to prepare and use, reasonably stable and self-processing. Furthermore the performance of these materials and their commercial availability is improving. The study of photopolymers is driven by the fact that these materials act as drivers and enabler for a range of technologies including refractive and diffractive optical elements, photo-embossing, hybrid 3D optoelectronic circuitry, data storage systems and self-trapping. At the heart to our approach to the modeling of these materials is the use of the Non-local Photopolymerisation Driven Diffusion Model (NPDD). Combining appropriate dye models and allowing for the effects of inhibition, kinetics and diffusion the NPDD has been applied to characterize several very different photopolymer systems successfully.