Polysiloxane-based photorefractive polymers for digital holographic data storage

A photorefractive polymer system based on a substituted polysiloxane backbone is described. In addition to high holographic diffraction efficiency and reasonable writing speed, the material reported exhibits excellent optical clarity and low optical scattering characteristics. These latter optical properties are necessary in high density holographic digital data storage applications. The utility of the polysiloxane based photorefractive polymers for storage applications is demonstrated by recording digital data at a density of 0.52 Mbit/cm2 and reading it back without error.