Abstract

It is well known that aperiodic (chirped) refractive index Bragg gratings can be used for compensating the dispersion of optical fiber waveguides [1]. When used in reflection mode (in contrast to transmission mode), such Bragg gratings exhibit large dispersion. As well, the sign of the dispersion in reflection mode is easily controlled. Together these two characteristics suggest the use of aperiodic Bragg gratings for dispersion compensation in optical fiber systems. Simple theoretical calculations show that a relatively short Bragg grating device can compensate, over a useful bandwidth, for the dispersion of an optical fiber that is tens of kilometers long.

© 1994 Optical Society of America