Chirped switchable reflection grating in holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal for spectral flattening in free-space optical communication systems

Appl Opt. 2004 Nov 10;43(32):5996-6000. doi: 10.1364/ao.43.005996.

Abstract

We report the design and fabrication of a chirped switchable reflective grating (CSRG) recorded in a holographic polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal material. This CSRG is a spatial wavelength-selective flattener in a free-space dynamic gain equalizer for use in wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks. Prelimenary experimental results show that this device permits the management of the spectral power of a WDM stream with an attenuation range of 6 dB. The polarization-dependent loss introduced by the CSRG is shown to be less than 0.1 dB.