A thermo-optical process was developed for the erasure of surface relief gratings (SRG) inscribed on various films of mexylaminotriazine molecular glasses functionalized with different azobenzene chromophores, as well as azobenzene polymer films. Irradiation of the samples with a CO₂ laser beam causes localized heating of the soda lime substrate, which is then transferred to the azobenzene films, causing complete erasure of the gratings while the temperature of each film was monitored in real time. The erasure temperature has been found to be strongly correlated with the respective glass transition temperature (T_g) of the materials. Therefore, complete and partial all-optical erasure of gratings was successfully demonstrated and occurred in under a minute for azobenzene molecular glass films and under 3 minutes for azo-polymer films. Finally, gratings were shown to erase in specific patterns through the use of a metallic mask.

中文翻译：

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通过使用CO ₂激光 进行局部加热消除偶氮苯分子玻璃中的表面起伏光栅

开发了一种热光工艺，用于擦除刻在用不同的偶氮苯生色团功能化的各种甲基氨基三嗪分子玻璃膜以及偶氮苯聚合物膜上的表面起伏光栅（SRG）。用CO ₂激光束照射样品会导致钠钙基质的局部加热，然后将其转移到偶氮苯膜上，从而完全擦除光栅，同时实时监控每层膜的温度。已发现擦除温度与各自的玻璃化转变温度（T _g）的材料。因此，成功地证明了光栅的全部和部分全光擦除，并且偶氮苯分子玻璃薄膜在不到1分钟内发生，而偶氮聚合物薄膜在3分钟内发生。最后，显示出通过使用金属掩膜可以以特定的图案擦除光栅。