Optimization of apodized linearly chirped fiber gratings for optical communications

The dispersion characteristics of apodized, linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings and their potential as dispersion compensators have been studied systematically. It is shown that the positive hyperbolic-tangent profile results in an overall superior performance, as it provides highly linearized time-delay characteristics with minimum reduction in the linear dispersion. To compensate for the linear dispersion of 100 km of standard telecom fiber over certain bandwidth (in nanometers), the required grating length is 19.24 cm/nm.