UV writing of advanced Bragg gratings in optical waveguides

The subject of this ph.d. thesis is the fabrication of Bragg gratings in optical waveguides. During the study Bragg gratings were written in both planar waveguides and optical fibers using pulsed or continuous-wave lasers operating in the ultraviolet (UV) range. The main result is the development of the novel polarization control method for UV writing of Bragg gratings with advanced apodization profiles including phase shifts. The principle of the polarization control method relies on a spatial separation of the s- and p-polarized components of a linearly polarized UV beam corresponding to half the periodicity of the index modulation profile in the Bragg grating. A phase shift in the grating is realized by shifting the UV irradiance from one polarization to the other during the grating inscription. The amplitude of the modulation can also be varied continuously by changing the ration between the irradiance in the two polarizations, thus allowing for the inscription of any desired apodization profile including several phase shifts. Bragg gratings with specific amplitude and phase responses were designed using commerical available software. The resulting modulation amplitude profile and phase shifts were then translated into a polarizer angle profile and the Bragg grating were written using a pulsed excimer laser. Only optical fibers were used in this part of the thesis. The high quality planar waveguides used during the study were produced in the cleanroom facility at the Microelectronic Center, Technical University of Denmark. During fabrication the planar waveguides were annealed in an oxygen rich atmosphere. This reduces the photosensitivity to a negligible level and Bragg gratings cannot be written within reasonable time unless the waveguides are sensitized by deuterium loading. Samples were hence loaded at either 100 bar or 1800 bar prior to the UV exposure. Bragg gratings with uniform coupling strength throughout the grating and apodized gratings were realized by scanning the UV beam along the waveguide with a computer controlled velocity profile. The excellent agreement between simulated and measured spectra indicated that the fabricated planar waveguides were of a very high quality.