Modeling of spectral changes in bent fiber Bragg gratings

To better apply fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to various bending required situations, good understanding of their bending characteristics is crucial. In this Letter, a theoretical model to describe the changes of spectral properties of an FBG against the bending radius is proposed. This model shows that all the bend-induced spectral changes, the shift of center wavelength, decrease of reflectivity, and reduction of bandwidth, may be explained by the decrease of the effective "dc" refractive index change spatially averaged over one grating period. Experimental results are in agreement with theoretical predictions and confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model.