Abstract

It has been some time since the observation^1,2 that permanent phase gratings can be written in the core of certain, nominally ordinary germanosilicate optical fibers by simply exposing them to light from a single longitudinal-mode argon laser. Such gratings, which are automatically Bragg-matched for efficient reflection of the laser beam, typically have spectrally narrow stop bands. In the better fibers the grating grows in seconds, resulting in nearly 100% reflection of the laser beam. Besides the obvious interest in trying to understand the fundamental nature of this phenomenon, there are also clear device implications. In this talk, which will focus on recent work, I will discuss the possible underlying physics of the effect, and will review several applications.

© 1990 Optical Society of America