POLYSILOXANE-BASED PHOTOREFRACTIVE POLYMERS FOR DIGITAL HOLOGRAPHIC DATA-STORAGE

A photorefractive polymer system based on a substituted polysiloxane b ackbone is described. In addition to high holographic diffraction effi ciency and reasonable writing speed, the material reported exhibits ex cellent optical clarity and low optical scattering characteristics; Th ese latter optical properties are necessary in high density holographi c digital data storage applications. The utility of the polysiloxane b ased photorefractive polymers for storage applications is demonstrated by recording digital data at a density of 0.52 Mbit/cm(2) and reading it back without error. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.