Non-hydroscopic vanilla doped dichromated gelatin holographic material

Abstract Dichromate gelatins are well-known holographic materials. By doping this material with synthetic vanilla a change in the spectral response from regular dichromate gelatin is observed as an increase in optical density. This mixture presents an unusual high humidity resistance. It was possible to record holographic diffraction gratings using an argon ion laser ( λ =488 nm). These gratings exhibit good diffraction efficiency in transmission, on the order of 60% at Bragg angle, with more than 1700 lines/mm spatial resolution. The material development process consists simply of dipping it into using a solution of water and isopropyl alcohol. A hypothesis on the hydroscopic response of this new photosensitive material is also presented.