Photo-Responsive Polymers And Their Applications To Optical Memory

We synthesized photo-responsive azo polymers from novel malonic ester and silicate ester monomers having two symmetrical azobenzene groups in the side chain. The possibility of their applications as reversible data storage media was investigated utilizing optical data recording techniques. As a result, the azo polymers had very excellent stability and resolution of the stored data as well as the sensitivity to pump beam. The polymeric thin films also could be used as erasable digital data materials for a practical use by an Ar ion pulse laser (pulse width: 10 mu s). In addition, the polymeric thick films (500-1000 mu m) from new monomer and methyl methacrylate showed good angular selectivity for holographic memory by using optical two wave mixing technique.