Strategy for Simple\nControl of High Performance PQ/PMMA\nHolographic Media

Holographic data storage technology is a cost-effective\nsolution\nfor long-term archival data storage. However, the development of suitable\nholographic recording materials remains a challenge. Among these materials,\nphenanthraquinone-doped poly(methyl methacrylate) (PQ/PMMA) stands\nout due to its low cost and controllable thickness. Nevertheless,\nits limited photosensitivity and diffraction efficiency hinder its\nwidespread application. In order to solve these problems, we put forward\na kind of convenient and simple, low cost strategy, by adding plasticizer <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>-dimethylformamide (DMF) for preparation\nof DMF-PQ/PMMA photopolymer, avoid the use of complex compounds. The\naddition of DMF not only influences the thermal polymerization stage\nbut also forms weak interactions with PQ during the photoreaction\nprocess, thereby enhancing the holographic performance of DMF-PQ/PMMA.\nConsequently, we achieved a remarkable 9.1-fold increase in photosensitivity\n(from ∼0.35 to 3.18 cm J<sup>–1</sup>), improved diffraction\nefficiency by 20% (from 65% to 80%), and reduced volume shrinkage\nby a factor of 8 (from 0.4% to 0.05%). Furthermore, utilizing a collinear\nholographic storage system with multiplexing shift at a scale of 5\nμm resulted in an impressively low minimum bit error rate (BER)\nof only 0.36% (with an average BER of 1.4%), highlighting the fast\nprocessing capability and potential for low BER applications in holographic\ninformation storage using DMF-PQ/PMMA.