Polymer blends with azobenzene-containing block copolymers as stable rewritable volume holographic media

A storage material that is suitable for rewritable volume holographic media with a thickness in the millimeter range is presented (see figure). Writing, reading, and deleting are possible by purely optical means, and inscribed multiplexed gratings exhibit good long-term stability. A two-step method of optical deleting allows for more than 1000 erase-rewrite cycles without a measurable change in the material.