Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Novel long-period ber gratings written

by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses and applications
in optical ber communication
Y.J. Rao *, T. Zhu, Z.L. Ran, Y.P. Wang, J. Jiang, A.Z. Hu
Department of Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Received 23 June 2003; received in revised form 26 September 2003; accepted 21 October 2003

Abstract
In this paper, we report novel long-period ber gratings (LPFGs) fabricated by using a new writing technique that is
mainly based on the thermal shock eect of focused high-frequency CO2 laser pulses at several kHz. Several unique
characteristics of these LPFGs, such as bend and transverse-load, etc., are observed by experiments, for the rst time, to
our knowledge. These unique features of the LPFGs are mainly due to the asymmetrical distribution of the refractive
index on the cross-section of the LPFG induced by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses. Based on these novel LPFGs, an
amplied spontaneous emission noise lter and a gain equalizer have been demonstrated for the noise gure reduction
and the gain spectrum attening of Er-doped ber ampliers (EDFAs), respectively. By means of the unique bending
and loading features of the LPFG, two tunable gain equalizers have been demonstrated for dynamic gain attening of
EDFAs.
2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 42.81.Qb; 42.81.Wg
Keywords: Optical ber DWDM communication systems; Long-period ber gratings; Er-doped optical ber ampliers; ASE noise
lters; Dynamic gain equalizers

1. Introduction
In recent years, long-period ber gratings
(LPFGs) with a typical period of hundreds of micrometers have attracted considerable attention.
The LPFG has many advantages such as ease of

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86-23-6510-6917.

E-mail address: yjrao@cqu.edu.cn (Y.J. Rao).

fabrication, very low back reection, low insertion

loss, polarization independence, all-ber in-line
device, etc., [1]. LPFGs have been widely applied in
the eld of optical ber communication and sensing and a typical example is for gain equalization of
Er-doped optical ber ampliers (EDFAs) [27].
The ultraviolet (UV) laser pulses exposure method
has been used for fabrication of LPFGs by means
of the photosensitivity of Ge-doped optical bers.
However, the UV exposure method has some

0030-4018/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2003.10.048

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

constraints in practical applications, including high

running cost of UV lasers, use of photosensitive
bers or H2 -loaded bers in order to improve the
writing eciency of the grating, poor long-term
stability if annealing is improper, etc.
In this paper, we report novel LPFGs fabricated by a new technique which is mainly based on
the thermal shock eect of focused high-frequency
CO2 laser pulses at several kHz (patent issued) [8].
Compared to the method using low-frequency
CO2 laser pulses at several Hz reported previously
[9,10], this new technique is more eective in terms
of the writing eciency due to the signicant increase in the transient laser energy density on the
focused point of the ber, which is likely to cause
larger densication and residual stress relief and
hence larger refractive index change within the
region of the ber. Compared to the UV exposure
method, the advantages of the CO2 exposure
method could be: (i) much lower cost in terms of
both the laser used and running cost; (ii) more
simple fabrication procedures; (iii) use of ordinary
telecommunication bers rather than photosensitive bers or H2 -loaded bers; and (iv) better
temperature stability as such a type of LPFGs can
stand high temperature of up to
800 C [10].
Based on the LPFGs written by the high-frequency
CO2 laser pulses exposure technique, we demonstrate a number of novel ber-optic devices including an amplied spontaneous emission (ASE)
noise lter, a gain equalizer and two dynamic gain
equalizers used for optical ber communication.
Due to the dissimilarity in writing mechanisms,
such a LPFG has many unique features that are
quite dierent from the LPFGs written by UVlight. The main dierence is that the distribution of
the refractive index on the cross-section of the
LPFG induced by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses
is asymmetrical while that of the LPFG induced by
UV laser pulses is symmetrical. In this paper, the
writing method and operating principle of the
LPFG is presented rstly in Section 2 and then
the applications of the LPFG to the ASE noise
reduction, gain improvement and gain attening
of EDFAs are demonstrated in Section 3. Two
novel dynamic gain equalizers are proposed and
demonstrated by using the LPFG in Section 4.
This paper is concluded in Section 5.

2. Operating principle
The schematic diagram of the CO2 laser system for LPFG fabrication is shown in Fig. 1. The
CO2 laser (SYNRAD INC, USA) has a full
power of 10 W and operates at a typical frequency of 5 kHz which is probably the best frequency for glass to absorb the energy of a CO2
laser. The laser power is controlled by pulse
width modulation of the RF drive circuit used to
excite the plasma tube that is used to generate
lasing. The ber is scanned at both X and Y axes
by means of a 2-D optical scanner attached to the
laser. The laser beam is focused to a spot with a
diameter of
50 lm using a ZnSe lens with a
focusing length of 100 mm. In our experiment,
the focused spot was stepped by 1 lm to achieve
multiple exposures of the high-frequency CO2
laser pulses at a xed point on the ber. The
period of the high-frequency CO2 laser pulses was
200 ls and the delay time of each step of the
scanner was 700 ls, so each single light spot experienced 3.5 pulses. The width of a single laser
pulse was 16.5 ls, so the total exposure time for a
single spot was
1.5 ms, which is much shorter
than that used in [9], i.e., 290 ms. Hence, the
transient energy focused on the ber is high, i.e.,
6.67 W/ms, it is more likely to lead to the generation of the thermal shock eect which causes
larger densication and residual stress relief and
hence larger refractive index change of the ber
glass [11,12]. This means that the thermal shock
eect would dominate the formation of the periodic grating in this case. In addition, the averaging laser power used in this work was
0.83 W
so the total optical energy for a single spot on the
ber along X direction is approximately equal to
7.4 J/mm2 , which is very similar to that used in
[9], i.e., 7 J/mm2 . Therefore, the heating process
did not cause any physical deformation or damage on the ber, which was veried by observing
the surface of the LPFG with a microscope.
When the CO2 laser beam is focused on the ber,
both transmission and reection occur on the
incident side of the ber simultaneously. As silica
glass has a strong absorption around the wavelength of the high frequency CO2 laser, i.e., 10.6
lm, the incident CO2 light intensity is gradually

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

211

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the LPFG fabrication system.

weakened along the incident direction, that is, the

incident light intensity is strong on the incident
side of the ber, whereas the incident light intensity is weak on the escape side of the ber,
which is likely to result in an asymmetric index
change within the cross-section of the ber, so the
index change on the incident side is larger than
that on the escape side [13].

The optical characteristics of the LPFGs fabricated by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses were
tested by experiments. In our experiment, the
light source used was a 2 mW SLD with a central
wavelength of
1545 nm and a bandwidth of

50 nm (OptoSpeed SA, Switzerland). The
transmission spectrum of the LPFGs was obtained via an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA)

Fig. 2. Typical transmission spectrum of the LPFG written by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses.

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Table 1
Optical characteristics of LPFGs written by high-frequency
CO2 laser pulses
Parameter

Data

Unit

Pass-band
Central wavelength range
Max insertion loss
Typical insertion loss

13001650
<0.5
0.3

nm
dB
dB

Rejection-band
Central wavelength range
Band rejection ratio

13001650
>15

nm
dB

3dB bandwidth range

PDL
Return loss
Thermal stability

520a
<0.5
>30
0.010.3a

nm
dB
dB
nm/C

Depending on the type of bers used.

(HP86142B) with a resolution of <0.1 nm. The

typical transmission spectrum of the LPFG in a
small spectral range is shown in Fig. 2, where the
core mode couples to the 8th-cladding mode. The
optical characteristics of the LPFGs fabricated
are summarized in Table 1.

3. Applications of the LPFGs to optical ber

communication
In this section, a number of novel ber-optic
devices including an ASE noise lter, a gain
equalizer and two dynamic gain equalizers based
on the LPFGs fabricated are demonstrated.
3.1. ASE noise lters
The ASE noise reduction and gain equalization
of EDFAs is a critical issue for SDH or/and dense-

wavelength-division-multiplexed (DWDM) communication systems. Generally speaking, the ASE

noise and gain prole of an EDFA can be reduced
or attened by using an optical lter. Various
kinds of optical lters have been demonstrated for
these applications, including thin-lm interferometric lters, ber acousto-optic tunable lters
[14,15], in-ber Bragg gratings [16], and LPFGs
[4,5]. The LPFG can play a role as both the gain
equalizer and the ASE noise lter simultaneously.
We have used such a type of LPFGs for the ASE
noise reduction and gain attening of EDFAs. A
low-noise pre-amplier with a noise gure of
3.5
dB and a low-noise, high gain in-line EDFA with a
noise gure of 4.3 dB and small-signal gain of up
to 37 dB have been demonstrated, respectively.
3.1.1. Low-noise pre-ampliers
The principle of using a LPFG to reduce the
ASE noise of an EDFA used as a pre-amplier is
shown in Fig. 3 schematically. The LPFG with a
central wavelength of around 1531 nm, where the
ASE noise and related ASE-signal beating noise is
maximum, is inserted in the middle of the Erdoped ber (EDF). So both the forward and
backward ASE generated during amplication can
be suppressed eectively, while the gain spectrum
of the EDFA can be attened greatly [17]. The
system used to test the EDFA performance consisted of a tunable laser source (HP81682A), a
polarization controller (HP11896A) and the OSA.
The experimental results show that an ASE noise
reduction of
0.5 dB was achieved by using a
LPFG with a band rejection ratio of
20 dB, a
bandwidth of
17 nm and a central wavelength of

1531 nm. The transmission spectra for both the
cases without ltering and with ltering are shown

Fig. 3. Principle of using a LPFG to reduce the ASE noise of an EDFA.

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

in Figs. 4(a) and (b), respectively. It can be seen

that the noise gure (NF) displayed by the spot in
the gure has been reduced from
4.0 to
3.5 dB
with little change in gain. Also, the gain-attened
region of such an EDFA can be expanded considerably to meet the requirements for broad
bandwidth applications. The noise gure reduction
of a pre-amplier will benet the improvement in
receiving signal-to-noise ratio and hence in bit error rate in an optical ber communication system
directly.
3.1.2. In-line ampliers with low-noise and high gain
For in-line EDFAs, both high small-signal gain
and low NF are essential. Due to the relatively
long ber length used, the inversed population
consumed by the ASE along the length of the EDF
can be reused for signal amplication by inserting
a LPFG in the middle of the EDF. The inversed

213

population increases with the reduction of the

ASE so that the pumping energy consumed by the
ASE originally is now used to obtain pure gain
enhancement of the EDFA. As a result of this gain
increase, the saturated power of the EDFA can be
improved greatly. Therefore, both the ASE noise
reduction and gain enhancement can be achieved
simultaneously by incorporating a LPFG lter in
the EDF. The principle of the ltering operation is
displayed in Fig. 5. The gain is enhanced by a
factor of G2 )G1 (here G2 > G1 ) when the LPFG
lter is used. Of course, the gain atness is also
improved considerably.
In our experiment, two cascaded LPFGs were
used to obtain a large band rejection ratio of
33
dB, as shown in Fig. 6. With this lter, an ASE
noise reduction of
0.5 dB and a small-signal gain
increase of
7 dB has been achieved for an EDFA
used as an in-line amplier. Figs. 7(a) and (b) show

Fig. 4. Comparison between the spectra of the EDFA without and with ltering.

Fig. 5. Principle of using a LPFG lter to achieve both the ASE noise reduction and gain enhancement of an in-line EDFA simultaneously.

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Fig. 6. Transmission spectrum of two cascaded LPFG ASE noise lters.

Fig. 7. Comparison between the spectra of the in-line EDFA without and with ltering.

the spectra of the EDFA without and with the

lter, respectively. Table 2 provides the results of
the noise gure and small-signal gain changes before and after adding the LPFG lter in the
EDFA. Both the noise reduction and gain enhancement for in-line EDFAs using the LPFG are
signicant such that the pump laser could be replaced using one with much smaller pumping
power when incorporating the LPFG in the
EDFA, hence reducing the total cost of the in-line
EDFA considerably. Such a LPFG ASE noise
lter can be considered as a key component for
the performance improvement of present in-line
EDFAs widely used.

Table 2
Comparison of the EDFA performance before and after
ltering in the EDF
Parameter

Without ltering
(dB)

With ltering
(dB)

Small-signal gain
Noise gure (NF)
Flatness

30
4.8
7

37
4.3
2.5

3.1.3. Optimization of the EDFA with an ASE lter

The optimization of an EDFA with an ASE
lter has been investigated for the rst time. The
eects of the position of the lter in a 10 m long
EDF on the signal gain and NF are studied by

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

locating a lter with a peak amplitude of
21 dB

and a central wavelength of
1531 nm, and the
results obtained are shown in Figs. 8(a) and (b),
respectively. The positions start at 3 m from the
input end of the EDF and end at 7 m with an interval of 1 m. The optimum positions are in the
region of around 4 m, i.e., nearby the 2/5 region of
the EDF. The eects of the resonant peak amplitude of the lter on the signal gain and NF are
investigated by using six lters with dierent peak
amplitudes ranging from 10 to 35 dB and the re-

215

sults are shown in Figs. 9(a) and (b), respectively

(here the LPFG was located in the 2/5 region of
the EDF). It can be seen that the optimum peak
amplitudes are in the 2030 dB region. These results are very useful for optimum design of in-line
EDFAs with both high-gain and low-noise.
3.2. Gain equalizers
The LPFGs written by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses have been used for the gain equalization

Fig. 8. Eects of the position of the LPFG lter in the EDF: (a) gain, (b) NF.

Fig. 9. Eects of the peak amplitude of the LPFG lter: (a) gain, (b) NF.

Fig. 10. Experimental results of two EDFAs with gain equalization.

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

of EDFAs. Figs. 10(a) and (b) display the experimental results for two EDFAs, respectively. For
the rst EDFA, a gain atness of < 0:5 dB has
been achieved over a 34 nm bandwidth whilst for
the second EDFA the gain prole has been attened within 0:5 dB over a 25 nm bandwidth.
The atness achieved can meet the requirements
for practical applications. These LPFG gain
equalizers can be thermally stabilized and incorporated into the EDFA in order to prevent the
spectral drift of the LPFG caused by environmental temperature changes. The PDL of the
attened EDFAs at the wavelength of
1531 nm is
< 0:5 dB, which is very similar to those EDFAs
attened using other optical devices.

LPFG is bended as a result of the decrease in the

coupling eciency. Fig. 11 shows the measured
transmission spectra of the LPFG for dierent
curvature radiuses. The measured relationship
between the peak amplitude of the LPFG and the
applied curvature radius is shown in Fig. 12. It can
be seen that they have a linear relationship such
that the notch depths of the LPFG can be adjusted
linearly by as many as )4 dB (corresponding to a
central wavelength shift of
)7.5 nm). The central
wavelength shift of the LPFG caused by bending
can be compensated thermally to match the gain
prole. Figs. 13 and 14 show the measured transmission spectra and the thermal property of the
LPFG for dierent temperatures, respectively. The

4. Dynamic gain equalizers

4.1. Tunable LPFG based on bend and temperature
Dynamic gain attening of EDFAs is an important issue for DWDM systems as the gain proles of EDFAs, in particular cascaded EDFAs,
vary with operation conditions, such as wavelength
add/drop [18,19]. Various techniques have been
reported for the dynamic gain attening of EDFAs,
including variable optical attenuators (VOAs), ber acousto-optic tunable lters (AOTFs) and microelectronic mechanical systems (MEMS) [2022].
In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a novel
method for dynamic gain attening of EDFAs,
based on the combination of the bending and
thermal characteristics of the LPFG written by
high-frequency CO2 laser pulses. The resonant
peak amplitude and central wavelength of such a
LPFG can be tuned by bending and heating (or
cooling) it to match the gain prole of an EDFA,
respectively. As the bending and thermal characteristics of the LPFG could be controlled automatically, the method oers great potential for
dynamic gain attening of EDFAs in compensating
the gain prole variations in dierent operation
conditions.
The coupling eciency between the cladding
mode and the fundamental mode of the LPFG
varies with the bending radius applied. The amplitude of the resonant peak decreases when the

Fig. 11. Measured transmission spectra of the LPFG for different curvature radiuses.

Fig. 12. Relationship between the peak amplitude and curvature radius.

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Fig. 13. Measured transmission spectra of the LPFG for different temperatures.

217

The LPFG gain equalizer described above was

used to atten the gain prole of an EDFA
pumped at 980 nm. The original gain spectrum
and attened gain spectrum of the EDFA are
shown in Figs. 15(a) and (b), respectively. It can be
seen that the gain atness achieved was
0:7 dB
over a bandwidth of
32 nm. When the pumping
power was changed, similar results were obtained
by readjusting the notch depth and central wavelength of the LPFG by means of the combination
of both bending and temperature variations. As
the ber is a thin wire, the bending response time
of the LPFG can be very fast, in principle, it is
mainly determined by the bending mechanism
used, which can be in the order of ms easily. The
work to realize an automatic LPFG dynamic gain
equalizer with the computer control is under way.
4.2. Tunable LPFG based on transverse load and
temperature

Fig. 14. Temperature characteristics of LPFG.

LPFG has a large temperature sensitivity of
)0.3

nm/C, which makes the central wavelength of the
LPFG to be adjustable easily. Also, the central
wavelength of the LPFG has a linear relationship
with the temperature change. Hence, such a good
exibility and linearity for the control of the LPFG
performance can provide a wide dynamic range for
the attening of the gain prole of an EDFA.

UV-induced LPFGs coated with a metal lm

have been demonstrated for use in gain equalization [23], but both the peak wavelength and the
peak amplitude are changed simultaneously during
operation, so it is needed that another parameter
has to be readjusted when one parameter is adjusted. In this paper, a novel approach is demonstrated to overcome this drawback. The unique
transverse load and temperature characteristics of
the LPFGs written by high-frequency CO2 laser
pulses exposure method are demonstrated, for the
rst time, to our knowledge. The resonant wavelength and the peak amplitude of the gain equalizer
based on the novel LPFG can be independently

Fig. 15. Gain spectrum of EDFA: (a) original gain spectrum, (b) attened gain spectrum.

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Fig. 17. Relationship between resonant wavelength shift and

circular orientation while load on LPFG is 80 g mm1 .
Fig. 16. Experimental set-up for loading test of LPFG.

20

40

60

80

100

120
0
-2

-4

-6
-2

-8

-4
-6

Amplitude (dB)

Resonant wavelength shift (nm)

adjusted by changing the temperature and the

transverse load applied to the LPFG, respectively.
Fig. 16 illustrates the conguration of an experimental system used for testing transverse load
characteristics of the LPFGs. An optical switch
was used to select the two channels for the measurement of the polarization-dependent losses
(PDL) and transmission spectra of the LPFG, respectively. The OSA was used to measure the
transmission spectra of the LPFG during loading.
A LPFG was tested with a resonant wavelength of
1531.23 nm, a resonant peak amplitude of )8.324
dB, and a 3 dB band-width of 8 nm under the free
state. The two ends of the ber with the LPFG were
mounted on the centers of two disks, respectively.
The LPFG and a dummy ber of the same type
were laid between two at surfaces. The load, P,
was applied on the top plat gradually. The width
and weight of the top plat is b 20 mm and 150 g,
respectively. The actual load on the LPFG is expressed by P 150=2b. The LPFG was rotated
around the axis of the ber by turning the two disks
synchronously such that the loading characteristics
of the LPFG at dierent loading orientations were
obtained. As shown in Fig. 17, the wavelengthload-sensitivity of the LPFG strongly depends on
the loading orientation, i.e., the resonant wavelength shifts are dissimilar at dierent loading orientations when an equal load was applied to the
LPFG. Within a circular range of 0180, there is
one orientation corresponding to the red shift
with a maximum load-sensitivity of +0.03 nm (g

mm1 )1 , and there is another orientation corresponding to the blue shift with a maximum loadsensitivity of )0.03 nm (g mm1 )1 , in particular,
there are two special orientations corresponding to
the most load-insensitive positions. It is also found
that the load-sensitivities of the resonant peak
amplitude at all loading orientations are quite
similar. Fig. 18 shows that the resonant wavelength
is insensitive to loading at special orientations,
corresponding to 0 and 95, and the maximum
shift is merely 0.1 nm. The resonant peak amplitude decreases linearly when the load increases,
with a coecient of approximately 0.03 dB (g
mm1 )1 .
By switching the optical switch to the PDL
measurement channel. The tunable laser and the
polarization controller were used to vary randomly the polarization state of the light incident

20

40

60

80

100

-10
120

Transverse load (gmm-1)

Fig. 18. Transverse-load characteristics of LPFG at the loadinsensitive orientation.

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Fig. 19. The maximum polarization-dependent loss of LPFG

during (j) free, (d) loading, at the wavelength-load-insensitive
orientation.

LPFG described above are due to the principal

dierence in the writing method and forming
mechanisms of LPFGs when compared with the
UV writing method and further investment is under way.
The temperature experiments show that the
resonant peak amplitude of the LPFG is hardly
changed while the resonant wavelength linearly
shifts during temperature varying. As shown in
Fig. 14, the temperature-sensitivity of the LPFGs
resonant wavelength is )0.3 nm C1 . The maximum change in the resonant peak amplitude is
merely 0.1 dB within the range of )40 to 120 C,
that is, the amplitude is very insensitive to the
temperature. Fig. 20 illustrates the change of the
LPFG transmission spectra during (a) load increasing at the load-insensitive orientation, (b)
temperature varying.
Based on the unique characteristics of the novel
LPFG i.e., (i) the resonant wavelength is insensitive
to loading while the resonant peak amplitude varies linearly with loading at some special circular
orientations; (ii) the resonant wavelength varies
linearly with temperature while the resonant peak
is hardly aected by temperature change, the resonant wavelength and the resonant peak amplitude
of the LPFG can be tuned independently. Such that
a novel adjustable gain equalizer based on the
LPFG is formed. In operation, at rst, an initial
load is applied to the side of the LPFG where the
resonant wavelength is insensitive to loading.
Then, by adjusting the load and the temperature
independently, the resonant peak amplitude and
the resonant wavelength can meet the requirements
for gain equalization simultaneously. A gain
equalizer based on a CO2 -laser-induced LPFG

-2

-2

-4

120 gmm-1

-6

60 gmm-1

-8

free

Amplitude dB

Amplitude dB

into the LPFG and a power meter was used to

measure the PDL of the LPFG under both free
and loading conditions. As shown in Fig. 19, the
maximum PDL was
0.3 dB while LPFG was
free, and this PDL value did not increase obviously while a load of 120 g mm1 was applied at
the wavelength-load-insensitive direction. That is,
the maximum PDL of the LPFG was
0.5 dB,
showing that it is insensitive to loading. In addition, in our experiment, the phenomenon that the
original resonant peak of the LPFG induced by
UV laser light splits into two sub-peaks during
loading [24] was not observed even when a load of
up to 200 g mm1 was used. This indicates that the
birefringence eect of the CO2 -laser-induced
LPFG is not signicant while loading is applied at
its wavelength-load-insensitive direction. The unique characteristics of the CO2 -laser-induced

-4
-6
-8
120C

-10
1480

(a)

500

1520 1540 1560

Wavelength (nm)

219

1580

-10
1480

(b)

1500

-40C

1520 1540 1560

Wavelength (nm)

1580

Fig. 20. Transmission spectra of LPFG while: (a) transverse-load at load-insensitive orientation is free, 60 and 120 g mm1 ,
respectively; (b) temperature is 120, 100; . . . ; )40 C, respectively.

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Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

30

(a)

Transmission (dB)

25
20

(b)

15
10
5
0
1520

1530

1540
1550
Wavelength (nm)

1560

1570

Fig. 21. Typical gain proles: (a) original gain spectrum; (b)
attened gain spectrum.

described above was connected to an EDFA constructed. Loading and temperature were adjusted
appropriately such that a gain atness of
0.5 dB
is achieved over a bandwidth of
33 nm. The original gain spectrum and attened gain spectrum of
the EDFA are shown in Fig. 21, respectively. When
the gain spectrum of the EDFA was changed resulting from the operational conditions of the
EDFA, similar gain atness was obtained by readjusting the resonant peak amplitude and the
resonant wavelength of the LPFG by the means of
the combination of both loading and temperature
variations. As the maximum PDL of the LPFG is
small and insensitive to loading at the wavelengthload-insensitive orientation, such a tuneable gain
equalizer seems to be a practical approach.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, a novel method for writing
LPFGs, mainly based on the use of the thermal
shock eect of multiple exposures of high-frequency CO2 laser pulses at several kHz, has been
described. The optical characteristics of such a type
of LPFGs, such as band-rejection ratio, insertion
loss, PDL, return loss, etc., have been investigated
by experiments. It is found that the LPFG written
using focused high-frequency CO2 laser pulses has a
number of unique features that are quite dierent
from those of the LPFGs written by the UV exposure method, such as bend, transverse-load, etc.,
due to the dissimilarity in writing mechanisms. The

main dierence is that the distribution of the refractive index on the cross-section of the LPFG
induced by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses is
asymmetrical while that of the LPFG induced by
UV laser pulses is symmetrical.
The novel LPFG can play a role as both the
gain equalizer and the ASE noise lter simultaneously by inserting it into the middle of an EDF.
We have used such a type of LPFGs for the ASE
noise reduction and gain attening of EDFAs. A
low-noise pre-amplier with a noise gure of
3.5
dB and a low-noise, high gain in-line EDFA with a
noise gure of 4.3 dB and small-signal gain of up
to 37 dB have been demonstrated, respectively.
The optimization of an EDFA with an ASE lter
has been investigated for the rst time, too. A gain
atness of < 0.5 dB has been achieved over a 34
nm bandwidth with the LPFG gain equalizer
fabricated, which can meet the requirements for
practical applications.
Two novel dynamic gain equalizers are proposed and demonstrated based on the unique
bending and loading characteristics of the LPFG.
Firstly, it is found that the resonant peak amplitude and central wavelength of such a LPFG
can be tuned by bending and heating (or cooling)
it to match the gain prole of an EDFA, respectively. A gain atness of 0.7 dB has been
achieved over a bandwidth of
32 nm using a
single-stage LPFG dynamic gain equalizer. Secondly, it is found for the rst time to our
knowledge that the resonant wavelength and the
peak amplitude of the gain equalizer based on the
novel LPFG can be independently adjusted by
changing the temperature and the transverse load
applied to the LPFG, respectively. A gain atness
of
0.5 dB has been demonstrated over a
bandwidth of
33 nm. It is anticipated that these
novel devices based on the LPFGs written by
focused high-frequency CO2 laser pulses could
nd important applications in the eld of optical
ber communication.

Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the Outstanding
Young Scientist Program of the National Natural

Y.J. Rao et al. / Optics Communications 229 (2004) 209221

Science Foundation of China under Grant No.

60025515.

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