We review our experimental investigations of photopolymerizable nanoparticle-polymer composites (NPCs) for holography and diffractive optics. Various types of hyperbranched polymer (HBP) were systhesized and used as transporting organic nanoparticles. These HBPs include hyperbranched poly(ethyl methacrylate) (HPEMA), hyperbranched polystyrene (HPS) and hyperbranched triazine/aromatic polymer units (HTA) whose refractive indices are 1.51, 1.61 and 1.82, respectively. Each HBP was dispersed in (meth)acrylate monomer whose refractive index was so chosen that a refractive index difference between HBP and the formed polymer was large. Such monomer-HBP syrup was mixed with a titanocene photoinitiator for volume holographic recording in the green. We used a two-beam interference setup to write an unslanted transmission volume grating at grating spacing of 1 μm and at a wavelength of 532 nm. It is shown that NPC volume gratings with the saturated refractive index modulation amplitudes as large as 0.008, 0.004 and 0.02 can be recorded in NPCs incorporated with HPEMA, HPS and HTA at their optimum concentrations of 34, 34 and 25 vol.%, respectively. We show the usefulness of HBP-dispersed NPC volume gratings for holographic applications such as holographic data storage and diffractive optical devices.
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