Humidity and temperature response of photopolymer-based holographic gratings

摘要

Holographic sensors have significant potential in various applications ranging from in vitro diagnostics to optical security. They are capable of providing fast, real-time, reversible or irreversible, visual colorimetric or optical readouts. The main challenge in the development of holographic sensors is to improve their selectivity by functionalizing the holographic recording material and achieve a response to a specific analyte. This material should be permeable to the analyte and its properties should change under exposure to the analyte. This work explores the humidity and temperature response of volume phase gratings recorded in photopolymers containing acrylamide and diacetone acrylamide as monomers, and triethanolamine and N-phenylglycine as photoinitiators. Characterization of the humidity response of photopolymer-based gratings in the relative humidity (RH) range of 20-90 % was carried out by measuring the diffraction efficiency of slanted transmission gratings and the position of the maximum intensity in the spectral response of reflection gratings. A strong humidity dependence of the diffraction efficiency of diacetone acrylamide-based transmission gratings was observed at RH=20-90%. The humidity dependence of the spectral response of the reflection gratings showed that photopolymers containing triethanolamine are more hydrophilic than photopolymers containing N-phenylglycine. The temperature response of slanted transmission gratings was investigated in the temperature (T) range of 20-60 °C. Exposure of the photopolymer layers containing triethanolamine to elevated temperature showed that the observed Bragg angle shift was caused by layer shrinkage due to water evaporation. The application of a sealing technique allowed for the observation of the photopolymer layer swelling due to the layer's thermal expansion. The results demonstrate an effective approach to obtaining photopolymer-based gratings with tuneable temperature and humidity sensitivity.