Improving the performance of methylene blue sensitized photopolymer by doping with nickel ion

•Improvement in the holographic performance of the photopolymer material with the incorporation of new metal ion is found.•Gratings recorded on the developed material are found to be stable for long time period.•The developed material is found to be panchromatic.

Holographic performance of an economically cheap metal ion doped photopolymer material is presented. We investigated the effect of incorporation of nickel ion into the methylene blue sensitized poly (vinyl alcohol)/acrylamide (MBPVA/AA) photopolymer system. The composition and preliminary characterization of the developed photopolymer material is reported. The presence of nickel ion improves the diffraction efficiency, stability of the material and it operates in a wide range of spatial frequencies (550–2000 lines/mm) at exposure energy of 100 mJ/cm2. When nickel ion concentration was 0.01 mM, maximum diffraction efficiency of 84% at exposure energy of 100 mJ/cm2 with spatial frequency 1335 lines/mm could be achieved for gratings recorded using wavelength of 632.8 nm. The material showed panchromaticity with more than 70% diffraction efficiency in both blue and green regions. Effects of humidity and temperature on the stored gratings were studied by keeping films in different environmental conditions. Suitability of recording large area holograms was also explored.