Abstract

Diffractive optical elements with a diffraction efficiency that can be controlled in real time are under investigation for use in reconfigurable optical interconnects, machine vision, image processing, and many other applications. Diffraction gratings recorded in DMP-128 photopolymer imbibed with a nematic liquid crystal¹ have been used as electrically switched elements. In this paper we present results that demonstrate optical control of the diffraction efficiency of volume holographic optical elements. Polaroid Corporation's DMP-128 was used to form the host gratings. These gratings were imbibed with the nematic liquid crystal 5CB, which was chosen for its relatively low clearing temperature of 35 °C. A thermal nonlinearity of the liquid crystal was utilized to achieve the switching behavior.

© 1995 Optical Society of America