An improved TDM scheme and data extracting algorithm for polymerization evaluation

To quickly evaluate holographic photopolymers with different formulations, the most effective method is to record a volume holographic grating in the samples and detect the grating’s diffraction in real time. Since the volume grating is highly sensitive to incident angle, existing schemes need to precisely control many space-related parameters. This study proposes an improved scheme, in which two different sized spots are used to reduce the requirements for the overlap of the two spots and the installation precision of the samples. Transmittances, diffractive efficiencies and diffractive asymmetries are obtained at a high sampling rate, through a specifically designed algorithm with the data from uncalibrated high-speed photodiodes. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme performance well in evaluating holographic photopolymer.