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 m - 100 m . We demonstrate that it is possible to prepare transmission gratings with a lattice constant of Λ = 480 n m , 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 10 - 3 at λ = 543 n m . However, further improvements have to be made to obtain efficient neutron optical components.
Keywords: diffraction gratings; holography; ionic liquids; neutron optics; polymer composites; thick gratings.