Stretched exponential kinetics for photoinduced birefringence in azo dye doped PVA films

We fabricated azo dye (methylorange) doped poly vinyl alcohol (MO/PVA) thin films and measured the photoinduced birefringence (PIB) kinetics for several pump beam intensities and for various MO concentrations by using the pump-probe technique. A novel approach to explain the transient behaviors of the photoinduced anisotropy is presented by employing an empirical stretched exponential time response in the course of the trans-cis-trans photoisomerization of azo molecules and is compared with the experimental data, showing excellent agreement. The stretched exponent is estimated to be β = 0.34 ± 0.04, revealing amorphous nature of the MO/PVA system.