Single-wall carbon nanotube doped photopolymer for holographic use

Abstract

Nanocomposites photonic materials are being actively studied for practical applications such as touch screen, wearable devices, optical sensors, photolithography, and neutron optics. For many of these applications, it is essential to fabricate embedded phase structures into media, in order to implement various properties for its practicality. High-contrast refractive-index changes with promising flexibility are usually desired for these applications. Photopolymers as an appealing candidate are attractive because they hold several advantages, such as low cost, ease of use, shape flexibility, large-area process ability, and self-development capability. In this work, we carried out single-wall nanotube doped polymer composites, which are based on acrylate-thiol-ene photopolymer material. It is shown that a substantial increase in refractive index modulation and diffraction efficiency is realized by doping both of BzO₂ and single-wall nanotubes. Moreover, the incorporation of BzO₂ lowers the optimum recording intensity to 0.25 mW/cm². These results indicate that carbon nanotube-polymer composite provides effective method to fabricate flexible films with large-area holograms for wearable devices, display, and optical sensor uses.