Stress-Induced Versatile Tunable Long-Period Gratings in Photonic Crystal Fibers

We report a method for generating versatile tunable long-period gratings (LPGs) in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). The central wavelength and rejection bandwidth of LPGs can be tuned over a broad spectral range with adjustable transmission loss. Spectral fringes with uneven spacing are observed in chirped LPGs, depending on the interaction length and the amount of chirping between the two ends of the LPG, and can be removed by reducing the chirping and increasing the grating length. By utilizing a stress-induced LPG, gain flattening of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier has also been demonstrated.