Effects of random phase and amplitude errors in optical fiber Bragg gratings

This paper studies the influence of random phase and amplitude fabrication errors on the performance of optical filters based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBG's). In particular, we analyze two effects of particular importance for optical communications: the excess crosstalk induced in apodized gratings commonly used in wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) systems, and the time-delay fluctuations that appear in chirped gratings employed to compensate the fiber dispersion. A statistical model is presented to explain these effects in terms of the coherence length of the grating fabrication procedure.