A variable diffraction efficiency phase mask is produced by focused ion beam, implanting a grating pattern into a fused SiO
2 substrate with a 100-nm-diam, 200keV Si beam. The substrate is prepared by cleaning and coating with a 20-nm-thick film of Al to dissipate the ion charge. The pattern consists of 930 lines, each 80μm long, at a pitch of 1.075μm, to obtain a 1-mm-long grating. The substrate is wet etched in a 1M% HF solution for about 45min to produce a phase mask with the desired diffraction efficiency. This phase mask is used to photoimprint Bragg gratings into standard hydrogenated single-mode telecommunication fibers using 193nm light from an ArF laser.
An apodized in-fibre Bragg grating reflector is fabricated using the phase mask photoimprinting technique. The reflector has a centre wavelength of 1550 nm, a bandwidth of 0.22 nm and a peak reflectivity of 90%. At 0.4 nm (50 GHz) from the centre wavelength the reflectivity is 40 dB lower than the peak reflectivity; this is an improvement of more than 20 dB over an unapodized Bragg grating reflector with similar bandwidth and peak reflectivity.
An apodized chirped in-fibre Bragg grating that has a linear dispersion characteristic is reported. The frequency components of an optical pulse (centre wavelength 1551 nm; 10 GHz bandwidth) incident on the grating are reflected with a relative delay that varies linearly from 0 to 130 ps across the spectral width of the pulse. The dispersion compensator is used to correct for the dispersion in a 100 km link (nondispersion shifted fibre) operating at a 10 Gbit/s transmission rate and a wavelength of 1551 nm.
When hydrogen loading is used to enhance the photosensitivity of silica-based optical waveguides and fibres, the presence of molecular hydrogen dissolved in the glass matrix changes the effective index of propagation of guided optical modes by as much as 0.05%. Real-time monitoring of the reflectivity spectrum of Bragg gratings written in such conditions shows that the centre wavelength follows the changes in hydrogen concentration due to diffusion and reaction with glass defects.
The core refractive index of Corning SMF-28 optical fibre exposed to ArF laser pulses increases with the square of the fluence per pulse. Bragg gratings with a refractive index modulation amplitude higher than 10
-3 have been obtained. This is an order of magnitude improvement over previously reported values for this type of fibre in the absence of treatment to enhance the photosensitivity.
Single-longitudinal-mode operation of Er3+-P2O5-codoped silica planar waveguide lasers which are equipped with integrated Bragg grating reflectors is demonstrated, with a polarized output of 340 μW at 1546 nm. The gratings are photo-imprinted using 193 nm light exposure through a phase mask in GeO2-free optical waveguides that have been sensitized by H2 loading.
A photolithographic method is described for fabricating refractive index Bragg gratings in photosensitive optical fiber by using a special phase mask grating made of silica glass. A KrF excimer laser beam (249 nm) at normal incidence is modulated spatially by the phase mask grating. The diffracted light, which forms a periodic, high-contrast intensity pattern with half the phase mask grating pitch, photoimprints a refractive index modulation into the core of photosensitive fiber placed behind, in proximity, and parallel, to the mask; the phase mask grating striations are oriented normal to the fiber axis. This method of fabricating in-fiber Bragg gratings is flexible, simple to use, results in reduced mechanical sensitivity of the grating writing apparatus and is functional even with low spatial and temporal coherence laser sources.