Polymer optical fiber photosensitivities and highly tunable fiber gratings

In this paper, recent progress in the investigation of photosensitivities o f polymer optical fibers and the development of polymer optical fiber grati ng is reported. Photosensitivities in various polymer fibers, including dop ed and undoped, multimode and single-mode polymer fibers, have been experim entally characterized and evaluated for fiber grating application. In parti cular, the wavelength dependence of material absorption and photosensitivit y has been found essential to the fabrication of polymer optical fiber grat ing. Based on the results of photosensitivity research, polymer optical fib er gratings have been successfully fabricated. More importantly, polymer op tical fiber grating has been demonstrated highly tunable, with a tuning ran ge more than 70 nm. The unique feature of high tunability in polymer optica l fiber grating has great potential in various applications including optic al fiber WDM systems and fiber sensor systems. Several important issues tha t remain to be investigated will also be discussed.