On the Use of Haloalkane/Acrylate-Based Holographic Gratings as Compression and Rotation Sensors

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 23; no. 1; p. 183
• Main Authors: Castagna, Riccardo, Riminesi, Cristiano, Di Donato, Andrea, Francescangeli, Oriano, Lucchetta, Daniele Eugenio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 24.12.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: acrylate; Acrylates; Communication; Composite materials; Diffraction efficiency; Efficiency; Gratings (spectra); halo-alkanes; holographic gratings; Holography; Lasers; Light; Mixtures; Nanoparticles; Photopolymerization; Polymerization; Polymers; Rhodamine 6G; Rotation; Sensors; acrylate; rhodamine 6G; halo-alkanes; holographic gratings; polymers
• DOI: 10.3390/s23010183
• ISSN: 1424-8220

In this work, we test the effectiveness of using highly transparent holographic phase reflection and transmission volume gratings based on multifunctional acrylates as linear compression and rotation sensors. The gratings are recorded in a holographic mixture based on multi-reticulated acrylate and haloalkanes. To activate the photo-polymerization process, we used a mixture of 6-oxocamphore and rhodamine 6G. The mixture is a simplified version of the mixture used in previous works and shows some interesting features mainly in connection with the different roles played by the rhodamine 6G dye at different writing wavelengths λ = 532 nm and λ = 460 nm. Regarding reflection gratings, the maximum achieved diffraction efficiency is ≈50% and their use as linear compression sensors produces a shift in the reflection peak of 2 nm. Following the removal of compression, the grating slowly returns to the initial state. Regarding transmission gratings, the maximum achieved diffraction efficiency is ≈45% and they demonstrate very high sensitivity to even small rotations in a free-standing configuration.