Measure of the diffraction efficiency of a holographic grating created by two Gaussian beams

We present a methodology for analyzing the characteristics of a photosensitive material for holography. When two Gaussian beams of equal intensities are exactly superimposed on the recording material, the modulation of the interference pattern is equal to unity. When they are no longer exactly superimposed, this modulation varies from one to zero depending on the analyzed point. On the other hand, the modulation is constant in a direction that is perpendicular to the incident plane. Therefore it is possible to consider a complete analysis (point by point) of only one holographic grating to measure the diffraction efficiency eta at a given modulation versus exposure or for varying modulation (or beam ratio K) for a given exposure. We present the results that are obtained with an experimental setup that was devised for that purpose. From these measurements it was possible to extract various parameters such as refractive-index modulation of the photosensitive support. The tested recording materials consist of film of dichromated gelatin and films of dichromate polyvinyl alcohol.