Spectral-shape-controllable Chirped Fiber Bragg Grating with a Photomechanical Microactuator: Simulation and Experiment

Recently, one of the authors has been reported an optically tunable fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with a photomechanical polymer. It was based on a typical FBG with a downsized diameter of 60 μm, coated with azobenzene-containing polymer material. Azobenzene is a well-known reversibly photomechanical stretchable material under ultraviolet (UV) light. The small part of the functional-coating region on the FBG absorbed UV light, which pulled the UV-exposed part of the grating. It was selectable as tunable FBG or tunable chirped FBG, by adjusting the position of UV exposure on the grating. As proof of concept for the tunable FBG device, the characteristics just including UV-induced center-wavelength shift and spectral-width changes of the device were reported. In this paper, we report for the first time that the microactuator makes it possible to control the spectral shape of the FBG reflection, according to the specifications (shape and intensity) of the UV beam that reaches the FBG coated with the azobenzene polymer. In addition, we provide the group-delay profiles for the chirped FBG, so that the sign of its dispersion (normal or anomalous) can be tailored by simply selecting the moving direction of the UV light’s displacement in the experiment.