High efficiency, low cost holographic optical elements for ultracold atom trapping

We demonstrate a method of creating high efficiency, high fidelity, holographic optical elements for the generation of complex optical fields, in a low cost photopolymer, Bayfol HX. The desired optical field profile is generated by a spatial light modulator and written into an optically addressable photopolymer as a volume hologram. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by trapping a Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium-87 atoms in the nodal plane of an HG_0,1 mode generated by one of these holographic optical elements. We also extend this method to the generation holograms with twice the angular momentum per photon than can be generated with a given spatial light modulator.