A remarkably efficient azobenzene peptide for holographic information storage

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 similar to 13-mu m-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.