Tapered Fiber Bragg Gratings for Dispersion Compensation in Mode-Locked Yb-Doped Fiber Laser

We demonstrate a method for dispersion compensation based a on constant-period fiber Bragg grating imprinted into a tapered fiber (T-FBG). This technique is more convenient than the conventional approach based on chirped fiber Bragg gratings made using chirped phase masks. Using a uniform phase mask, the chirp and dispersion of the T-FBG is determined by the taper shape, and can be varied by changing the tapering parameters. We show that the T-FBG is capable of dispersion compensation of a few meter long fiber laser, resulting in soliton mode-locking.