Purely axial compression of fiber Bragg gratings embedded in a highly deformable polymer

We demonstrate a tuning device for fiber Bragg gratings with a wavelength tuning range in excess of 65 nm. A purely axial tuning technique using a highly deformable polymer molded in a cylinder shape is used to embed a fiber Bragg grating and to achieve a wavelength tuning range from 1551.7 to 1485.5 nm. The tuning curve is highly linear with a tuning rate of 9.6 nm for every percent of applied strain. The insertion losses of the device, the variations of the full width at half maximum, and the stability of the Bragg wavelength over a working day have been studied and shown to be less than 0.02 dB, 0.14, and 0.2 nm, respectively. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.