Observation of type I and type II grating behaviour in polymer optical fiber

Abstract

We report the first observation of type I and type II fiber grating behaviors in making polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings. Our observation reveals that there are two distinctive stages in the fabrication of polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings. Notably the two stages of grating formation correspond to low and high-index modulation gratings, which match well with those in silica fiber grating fabrication. Thus we refer them as type I and type II polymer fiber gratings, following the same nomenclatures for different types of silica fiber gratings. In addition, the characteristics and formation mechanism for type I and type II polymer fiber gratings are also examined.