Tomoyuki SASAKI, Hiroshi ONO^*, and Nobuhiro KAWATSUKI¹

Department of Electrical Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, 1603-1 Kamitomioka, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2188, Japan
¹Department of Materials Science and Chemistry, University of Hyogo, 2167 Shosha, Himeji, Hyogo 671-2201, Japan

(Received July 10, 2008; Accepted February 16, 2009)

A detailed analysis of three-dimensional vector holograms is presented which were recorded in a photoreactive polymer dissolved liquid crystal. The diffraction properties of resultant periodic anisotropic structures were investigated. Experimental observations confirmed that the diffraction efficiencies of the structures varied with slight changes of the grating pitch, and also that they strongly depended on the incident angle of the probe beam. These diffraction properties were explained by the finite-difference time-domain optical simulations.

Key words: liquid crystal, azo-dye, molecular reorientation, holography, polarization, FDTD method

^*E-mail address: onoh@nagaokaut.ac.jp