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New materials for volume holographic technologies

Final Activity Report Summary - NMVHTS (New materials for volume holographic technologies)

The present project dealt with the research on new materials for volume holography-based technologies, as well as with the building of an optical setup for both recording and reading of multiplexed holograms and the study of the physical and chemical mechanisms of volume holographic recording in chalcogenide glasses.

At the current stage, the optical setup had three degrees of freedom, namely one degree of translation, x, and two degrees of rotation, and non-polarising optics. It was planned to increase the degrees of freedom to five, including two more linear translation stages, namely y and z. A thermal evaporation chamber sample was customised for the deposition of antireflection coatings and a second evaporation chamber was being adapted for the preparation of thick films of amorphous chalcogenides by the time of the project completion. First tests were performed on two microns thick amorphous As40S60 and As20S80 films and the results probed both the stability of the system and the suitability of the chalcogenide films for the recording of extended focus Fresnel lenses as the first diffractive optical element which was planned to be addressed to improve the performance of laser cutting systems. On the other hand, a new continuous wave cw-laser-assisted film deposition technique was recently investigated, expected to reduce the film fabrication time and probably provide new film properties.