Fiber Bragg reflectors prepared by a single excimer pulse

Narrow-line, permanent Bragg reflection gratings have been created in Ge-doped silica-core optical fibers by interfering beams of a single 20-ns pulse of KrF excimer laser light. Of the fibers studied, the highest reflectance value of ~2% was observed with a linewidth (FWHM) of 0.1 nm, which corresponds to a 2-mm grating length with an index modulation of ~3 x 10(-5).