Electrically tunable power efficient dispersion compensating fiber Bragg grating

Novel devices only offer reasonable telecommunication solutions when they c an be packaged and manufactured efficiently and at low cost. We demonstrate such a compact and power efficient tunable dispersion compensating fiber B ragg grating (FBG) device. The device relies on a distributed on-fiber thin -film heater deposited onto the outer surface of an unchirped FBG, Current flowing though the thin film generates resistive heating that is governed b y the thickness profile of the metal film. A chirp in the grating is obtain ed by using a coating whose thickness varies with position along the length of the grating in a prescribed manner; the chirp rate is adjusted by varyi ng the applied current. Using an electrical power of less than 1 W in a pac kaged device, we demonstrate a linearly chirped Bragg grating in which the dispersion is continuously tuned from -300 to -1350 ps/nm, with an average deviation from linearity of approximately 10 ps.