Effects of recording wavelength on three-dimensional vector holograms in photoreactive liquid crystal composites

Effects of recording wavelength on the recently proposed (Sasaki, 2008) three-dimensional vector holograms, in which the optical anisotropy is three-dimensionally modulated, are presented experimentally and theoretically. The polarization states of the interference light are three-dimensionally modulated due to both the polarization interference and optical anisotropy in the recording medium. These spatial distributions of the polarization states and the resulting diffraction properties in the three-dimensional vector holograms are strongly dependent on the recording wavelength. Theoretical consideration based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method reveals the mechanism of the optical characteristics of the three-dimensional vector holograms recorded by various kinds of light sources with different wavelengths.