| Summary: | We investigate the applicability of polymer-ionic liquid composites as optical elements for light, as well as for slow neutrons. The gratings are recorded using two-beam mixing and are characterized experimentally based on their diffraction properties. We produced a set of samples differing in their thickness, ranging from 10 μm−100 μm. We demonstrate that it is possible to prepare transmission gratings with a lattice constant of <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>Λ</mo> <mo>=</mo> <mn>480</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> nm, resulting in thick gratings for light, as well as neutrons. The presented samples show low optical losses in the Vis-UV spectrum and exhibit refractive index modulations of about <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <msup> <mn>10</mn> <mrow> <mo>−</mo> <mn>3</mn> </mrow> </msup> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> at <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mi>λ</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>543</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> nm. However, further improvements have to be made to obtain efficient neutron optical components.
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