Stability of the surface relief grating on the thin film of the polyurethane and the polymethacrylate containing an aminonitroazobenzene moiety

We synthesized the new photosensitive polymers containing an aminonitroazobenzene moiety in the side chain. Azobenzene-containing polyurethane and polymethacrylate were prepared for fabricating the diffraction gratings on the film surface. Two-beam coupling method was employed for fabricating the surface relief gratings. The dynamics of formation of the diffraction gratings was studied in term of the variation of the diffraction efficiency. The erasing behavior of the surface relief gratings was observed under a linearly polarized single beam irradiation. The stability of the diffraction efficiency was also investigated with the change of the sample temperature. The effect of the molecular specific interaction on the thermal stability of the surface relief grating below the glass transition temperature was studied in this work.