Facile preparation of ductile, free-standing and multilayer polymeric optical data storage media with macroscopic structural homogeneity

Abstract

Polymers doped with photosensitive molecules/nanoparticles are believed to be promising optical data storage media. In this communication, a simple method is reported to incorporate multilayers of photosensitive molecules with controlled concentration and spatial distribution into a polymer matrix. This simple hot pressing-based method makes it compatible with existing polymer processing techniques. It is demonstrated that this approach is effective to fabricate free-standing and multi-layered optical data storage media with commonly available polymers. The formation of a multilayer architecture within the polymer matrix involves no adhesives or polymers of other kinds, thus eliminating the concern of refractive index-mismatch between adjacent layers and making the whole material macroscopically homogeneous in structure. When polymers with good ductility and high glass transition temperature are used as the matrix, the macroscopically homogeneous structure can help the material to endure deformation and heat without losing the recorded information.