Rewritable azobenzene polyester for polarization holographic data storage

Optical storage properties of thin azobenzene side-chain polyester films were examined by polarization holographic measurements. The new amorphous polyester film is the candidate material for the purpose of rewritable holographic memory system. Temporal formation of anisotropic and topographic gratings was studied in case of films with and without a hard protective layer. We showed that the dominant contribution to the diffraction efficiency comes from the anisotropy in case of expositions below 1 sec even for high incident intensity. The usage of the same wavelength for writing, reading and erasing was tested. The ability of azobenzene polyester for rewriting was found satisfactory after many writing-erasing cycles.