Optical grating device with variable coating

摘要

A tunable chromatic dispersion compensator for optical communication systems is disclosed. An optical grating, such as a fiber Bragg grating, non-chirped, linearly chirped or non-linearly chirped, is coated on its outer surface with a coating have a variable diameter and strained is applied to the fiber. The fiber may be latchably strained so that the grating characteristics may be changed or tuned while avoiding use of a continuous power supply. Various optical networking applications using such dispersion compensating devices are also disclosed. <IMAGE>