Analysis Of Higher Order Harmonics With Holographic Reflection Gratings

Silver halide emulsions have been considered one of the most energetic sensitive materials for holographic applications. Nonlinear recording effects on holographic reflection gratings recorded on silver halide emulsions have been studied by different authors obtaining excellent experimental results. In this communication specifically we focused our investigation on the effects of refractive index modulation, trying to get high levels of overmodulation that will produce high order harmonics. We studied the influence of the overmodulation and its effects on the transmission spectra for a wide exposure range by use of 9 mu m thickness films of ultrafine grain emulsion BB640, exposed to single collimated beams using a red He-Ne laser (wavelength 632.8 nm) with Denisyuk configuration obtaining a spatial frequency of 4990 l/mm recorded on the emulsion. The experimental results show that high overmodulation levels of refractive index produce second order harmonics with high diffraction efficiency (higher than 75%) and a narrow grating bandwidth (12.5 nm). Results also show that overmodulation produce diffraction spectra deformation of the second order harmonic, transforming the spectrum from sinusoidal to approximation of square shape due to very high overmodulation. Increasing the levels of overmodulation of refractive index, we have obtanined higher order harmonics, obtaining third order harmonic with diffraction efficiency (up to 23%) and narrowing grating bandwidth (5 nm). This study is the first step to develop a new easy technique to obtain narrow spectral filters based on the use of high index modulation reflection gratings.