Characteristics of fourier phase holograms recorded on photopolymers

The results of the investigation of recording Fourier phase holograms on a self-developing photopolymer photosensitive in the range λ=400–515 nm are presented. It has been found that, due to the transient energy transfer between the beams, noise gratings are recorded, and a corresponding sharp reduction in the signal-to-noise ratio occurs, while the diffraction efficiency of the hologram as a whole remains relatively high (above 50%). It has been found that the noise-grating recording can be substantially suppressed by increasing the intensity of the reference beam relative to the intensity of the object beam. In this way, the signal-to-noise ratio has been considerably improved for Fourier holograms of binary phase masks: at a reference to object beam intensity ratio R=26, Fourier phase holograms are recorded with a diffraction efficiency η=15% and signal-to-noise ratio N=20 dB.