COMPENSATION APPARATUS AND METHOD UTILISING SAMPLED BRAGG GRATINGS

摘要

Dispersion compensation devices are described which comprise waveguides including sampled Bragg gratings which exhibit comb-like reflectance characteristics. The profile of effective refractive index along the length of the grating is controlled to adjust the position of the teeth and/or to control the dispersion exhibited by the device (i.e. to control the chirp of the grating). The devices can thus be used to provide dispersion compensation to any one of a number of wavelength channels in a WDM system. In preferred arrangements, the effective refractive index distribution is set by a applying a temperature distribution along the length of the grating, or by setting an applied electric field,