Implementation and characterization of fiber Bragg gratings linearly chirped by a temperature gradient

We propose a new method for introducing a chirp on a fiber Bragg grating. Uniformly written fiber Bragg gratings are linearly chirped through the use of a controllable temperature gradient device. This device allows the linear chirp conditions to be totally adjustable in a nondestructive repeatable manner. These conditions can be selected with great precision and are very stable, once defined. To characterize the resulting chirped gratings, we have measured their dispersion. Dispersion of the order of 200 ps/nm have been obtained for 1-cm-long fiber Bragg gratings with temperature gradients near 20 degrees C.