Photochromic polymers for erasable focal plane masks and rewritable volume-phase holographic gratings

Thermally irreversible photochromic materials, mainly belonging to the diarylethene class, are potentially useful as optoelectronic devices. Poly-1,2-bis-(2-methyl thiophen-3-yl)perfluorocyclopentene has been studied in order to verify its possible application in astronomy for the production of re-writable focal plane masks and volume phase holographic gratings. Films of photochromic materials embedded in an amorphous polymer matrix are obtained by casting from chloroform solution. The films show a good transparency in the visible region when the photochromic molecule is in the open-ring form, while they totally absorb visible wavelength radiations when the photochrome is in the other isomeric form. The variation in refractive index between the two photochromic isomers, evaluated by UV-vis-NIR absorption spectra, is large enough to make this photochromic apt for the production of volume phase holographic gratings.

[1]  Gerasimos M. Tsivgoulis,et al.  Photonic Molecular Devices: Reversibly Photoswitchable Fluorophores for Nondestructive Readout for Optical Memory , 1995 .

[2]  Alvaro Fernandez-Acebes,et al.  Combinatorial Color Generation with Mixtures of Dithienyl Photochromes , 1999 .

[3]  Chiara Bertarelli,et al.  Diarylethene-based photochromic rewritable optical memories: on the possibility of reading in the mid-infrared , 1999 .

[4]  James A. Arns,et al.  Volume‐Phase Holographic Gratings and the Efficiency of Three Simple Volume‐Phase Holographic Gratings , 2000 .

[5]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Photochromism of diarylethenes having thiophene oligomers as the aryl groups , 1997 .

[6]  Shinichiro Nakamura,et al.  Thermally irreversible photochromic systems: a theoretical study , 1988 .

[7]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  PHOTOCHROMISM OF DITHIENYLETHENES WITH ELECTRON-DONATING SUBSTITUENTS , 1995 .

[8]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Refractive Index Change of Dithienylethene in Bulk Amorphous Solid Phase , 1999 .

[9]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Refractive Index of Organic Photochromic Dye-Amorphous Polymer Composites , 1994 .

[10]  Giuseppe Zerbi,et al.  A High Quantum Yield Diarylethene-Backbone Photochromic Polymer , 1999 .

[11]  Jean-Marie Lehn,et al.  A dual-mode optical–electrical molecular switching device , 1994 .

[12]  Jean-Marie Lehn,et al.  Photochemical pKa‐Modulation and Gated Photochromic Properties of a Novel Diarylethene Switch , 1999 .

[13]  Jean-Marie Lehn,et al.  Photochemical pKa-Modulation and Gated Photochromic Properties of a Novel Diarylethene Switch. , 1999 .

[14]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Diarylethenes with Heterocyclic Aryl Groups , 2002 .

[15]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Photooptical Switching of Polymer Film Waveguide Containing Photochromic Diarylethenes , 1994 .

[16]  Kawai Stephen,et al.  PHOTOCHROMIC BIS(MONOAZA-CROWN ETHER)S. ALKALI-METAL CATION COMPLEXING PROPERTIES OF NOVEL DIARYLETHENES , 1998 .

[17]  Kenji Matsuda,et al.  Photoswitching of Intramolecular Magnetic Interaction: A Diarylethene Photochromic Spin Coupler , 2000 .

[18]  Masahiro Irie,et al.  Superlow-Power Readout Characteristics of Photochromic Memory , 1995 .

[19]  Jean-Marie Lehn,et al.  A Dual‐Mode Molecular Switching Device: Bisphenolic Diarylethenes with Integrated Photochromic and Electrochromic Properties , 1995 .