Single femtosecond pulse holography using polymethyl methacrylate.

Holographic gratings have been written on the surface and inside transparent polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) with individual 130 fs laser pulses at 800 nm. A surface-relief grating is fabricated by ablation and the diffraction efficiency is measured to be about 20%. A volume grating inside PMMA is formed by the change in the refractive index induced by the two-beam interference fringes. Holographic data storage on the surface is realized when one beam carries information. The stored information can be nondestructively reconstructed when the fluence of the read beam is reduced below the threshold.