Realization of true-time-delay using cascaded long-period fiber gratings: theory and applications to the optical pulse multiplication and temporal encoder/decoder

This paper proposes and demonstrates a technique for repetition-rate multiplication of an optical pulse train having an arbitrary period or pattern and the optical temporal encoding/decoding for the optical-code-division multiple-access (O-CDMA) system. The technique exploits the difference in the propagation speeds between the core and copropagating cladding modes of a fiber to obtain true-time-delay between the modes traveling in the core mode and the cladding mode, which can be used to achieve pulse multiplication. For the coupling to the cladding mode, long-period fiber gratings (LPGs) were used. A series of cascaded LPGs imprinted in a fiber with a specific separation has been employed to obtain a specific rate of pulse multiplication with a single input pulse. Second, by controlling the separations among the gratings, the temporal encoder/decoder for O-CDMA could be implemented. The principle and the applications of the proposed device are investigated in detail. The effect of the birefringence of fiber and fiber gratings on the system performance in the time and spectral domains is presented. The sensitivity of the cladding modes in a conventional fiber to the perturbations at the cladding has been overcome by replacing the conventional fiber with inner-cladding fiber. The properties and the benefits of using the inner-cladding mode are investigated.