Optically reconfigurable azobenzene polymer-based fiber Bragg filter

Optically writable, thermally erasable surface relief gratings in thin Disperse Red 1 polymethyl methacrylate azopolymer films were used to demonstrate an arbitrarily reconfigurable fiber Bragg filter. Gratings were optically written on azopolymer-coated side-polished fiber blocks, and a write-erase-write cycle was demonstrated. Finite difference time domain simulations reveal that this optically reconfigurable device concept can be optimized in a silicon-on-insulator waveguide platform.