Characterization of semiconductor Bragg gratings

Bragg grating-based optical systems are important for both telecommunications and sensor applications. A new approach presented here which is rigorous yet computationally efficient, incorporates the finite element, the least squares boundary residual and the transfer matrix methods. The simulated results obtained show that the coupled mode theory (CMT) could be adequate for the characterization of Bragg grating devices in fiber, since the perturbed refractive index change is small. However, for Bragg grating devices in semiconductors, the use of CMT is shown to generate less accurate results than expected. Simulated results for various types of grating devices, such as uniform, chirped, apodized, super-structures and sampled grating devices are presented.