Holographic grating formation in dry photopolymer film with shrinkage

An important issue in developing applications for photopolymers in holography is the effect of shrinkage on recording properties. In this paper, we introduce a model to describe real-time formation of a single grating in photopolymers at any geometrical angle, under the assumption that the shrinkage is in proportion to the polymerization. This model combines polymerization kinetics with the coupled-wave theory, explaining the shrinkage effect on the diffraction efficiency. The model is validated by comparing its predictions with the experimental results for a film of 99μm thickness.