Tunable nonlinearly-chirped fiber Bragg grating for use as a dispersion compensator with a voltage-controlled dispersion

Summary form only given. We report the fabrication and tuning characteristics of a novel nonlinearly-chirped fiber Bragg grating (FBG). We use only a single mechanical PZT stretching element to tune the resonant wavelength of the device to dramatically and smoothly alter the generated chirp in a nonlinear function for a given channel from 300 ps/nm up to 1000 ps/nm. Moreover, the reflected power varies by only /spl sim/0.7 dB during tuning. This nonlinear FBG has a stable switching speed up to 100 Hz, which is sufficiently fast for active dispersion compensation in circuit-switched optical systems. Such an active dispersion technique may be placed in optical nodes for highly-robust performance. Although we have achieved dispersion tuning from 300-1000 ps/nm, larger dispersion tuning ranges can be obtained.