Impact of fullerene on the holographic properties of PQ/PMMA photopolymer

Through combining with free radical polymerization and supramolecular chemistry techniques, we herein demonstrate that C60 can dramatically enhance the intensity holographic performance (both signal and reference coherent beams are polarized perpendicularly to the plane of incidence) of phenanthraquinone doped poly methyl methacrylate (PQ/PMMA) photopolymer, and the angle-multiplexing of 321 gratings and 81 holographic patterns can be readily recorded separately. More surprisingly, although C60 can effectively enhance the intensity holography, it reduces the polarization sensitivity of PQ/PMMA photopolymer, resulting in a substantial weakening of orthogonally polarized holography (signal and reference coherent beams are polarized perpendicularly and parallelly to the plane of incidence, respectively). Further analysis reveals that the reduction of the polarization sensitivity should originate from the strong 7C-7C stacking interaction between C60 and PQ photo sensitizers, which causes C60 and PQ/PMMA construct supramolecular (C60 as the host) and limits the orientation of PQ during the photopolymerization. The constructed supramolecular also leads to a diminished photoinduced anisotropy of PQ/PMMA photopolymer. The current study thence has not only successfully synthesized photo polymer materials with potential for holographic storage applications, but also investigated the microphysical mechanism of the impact of fullerene on the holographic properties of PQ/PMMA photopolymer and clarified the structure-property relationship between the orientation of PQ photosensitizers and the polarization sensitivity of PQ/PMMA photopolymer.