All-optical dynamic grating generation based on Brillouin scattering in polarization-maintaining fiber

We report a novel kind of all-optical dynamic grating based on Brillouin scattering in a polarization maintaining fiber (PMF). A moving acoustic grating is generated by stimulated Brillouin scattering between writing beams in one polarization and used to reflect an orthogonally polarized reading beam at different wavelengths. The center wavelength of the grating is controllable by detuning the writing beams, and the 3 dB bandwidth of approximately 80 MHz is observed with the tunable reflectance of up to 4% in a 30 m PMF.