A Remarkably Efficient Azobenzene Peptide for Holographic Information Storage

Abstract

A new family of proline-based azobenzene peptides (DNO) for holographic information storage is reported. By use of polarization holography, it was found that gratings with extraordinarily high diffraction efficiency (up to 80%) can be recorded in hundreds of milliseconds in a ∼13-μm-thick film of dimer 10. This represents a decrease of the response time by more than 2 orders of magnitude when compared to that of the ornithine-based DNO dimer previously reported. Furthermore, it supports the expectation that increasing the rigidity of the peptide backbone is crucial in the design of effective azobenzene peptides for optical recording. Gratings recorded in 10 can be erased by circularly polarized light in a few seconds. It is also noted that, unlike DNOs previously reported, 10 is soluble in common organic solvents and can be assembled by solution-phase synthesis, which is mandatory for large-scale fabrication.