CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

This work evaluates the inscription of surface relief gratings (SRG) on a series of epoxy-azo prepolymers and networks, both based on the same azo chromophore. Variables as the matrix structure (thermoplastic/thermoset), film thickness, exposure time, power of the incident laser beam, and content of azobenzene were analyzed, over the final modulation depth of the gratings. The main goal of the paper is the efficient formation of SRGs on crosslinked azopolymer films, in a single step, in a reasonable time and to a significant extent. The progressive erasure of the obtained structures with increasing temperature showed that part of the photoinduced information remained encoded in the material: as the relief partially relaxed above the Tg of the bulk material (116 °C), and up to 200 °C its modulation maintained about one third of the initial height, and did not completely disappear.