Abstract

Infiltration of materials into the air holes of the PCFs can potentially manipulate their optical properties creating a new category of fibers termed as hybrid PCFs [1] and many devices based on hybrid PCFs have been developed [2-5]. Recently, a hybrid PCF with poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer inclusions has been demonstrated [6]. PDMS is widely used in the area of photonics and optofluidics. It is highly transparent with a refractive index ~1.41, conserving the total internal reflection guiding mechanism of the hybrid PCF. When PDMS is irradiated with UV light its refractive index increases [7]. In this paper we present the first example of a Bragg grating directly written using UV light on the PDMS inclusions of a conventional silica PCF.

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