Recording beam modulation during grating formation.

Holography has been of increasing interest in recent years, with developments in many areas such as data storage and metrology. Photopolymer materials provide potentially good materials for holographic recording, as they are inexpensive and self-processing. Many experiments have been reported in the literature that describe the diffraction efficiency and angular selectivity of such materials. The majority of these reports discuss the performance of the holographic optical element after the recording stage. It has been observed, however, that sometimes, during exposure, the transmitted recording beam intensities vary with time. A simple phenomenological model is proposed to explain the beam modulation, which incorporates the growth of the phase grating, time-varying absorption effects, the mechanical motion of the plate, the growth of a lossy absorption grating during the recording process, and the effects of nonideal beam ratios.