Chirped fiber Bragg gratings with arbitrary group delay responses using stepped-stretching fiber method

We present the design and development of piece-wise stepped-chirp fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) with arbitrary group delay responses using a uniform phase mask in a pre-stretched fiber. The method involves writing a series of sub-gratings on a pre-stretched fiber whose length is varied during the UV exposure process. Two motorized stages are employed to control the length of the pre-stretched fiber in order to adjust the grating pitch at each writing step to achieve piece-wise stepped chirping of the FBG. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the method to produce chirped FBGs with arbitrary group delay responses, a linear-chirp FBG and a quadratic-chirp FBG were fabricated, and their measured performances agree well with analytical predictions. PACS 42.81.-i; 42.79.Dj; 42.79.Ci