Erasable Holographic Material Using Reworkable Photocuring Resin

Abstract

Erasable holographic materials were fabricated using reworkable photocuring resins. The reworkable photocuring resins were prepared from a mixture of an alicyclic epoxy-containing methacrylate having a tertiary ester linkage, a multifunctional acrylate, a photoradical initiator sensitive to 532-nm light, and a photoacid generator sensitive to 365- nm light. A transmission hologram was recorded on the reworkable photocuing resins with a thickness of 100 μm by a two-beam interferometry using an Nd-YAG laser as the light source of 532 nm. The hologram recording was due to the increased refractive index caused by the crosslinking reaction of the reworkable photocuing resins by irradiation at 532 nm. The recorded hologram could be erased after irradiation at 365 nm and subsequent heating at 80 °C for 1 minute. The information of the hologram was completely disappeared by the degradation of the polymer networks in the reworkable photocuring resin due to the photoinduced acid-catalyzed decomposition of the tertiary ester linkages. The findings suggest that the reworkable photocuring resins are applicable to erasable recording materials.