Shaping the radiation field of tilted fiber Bragg gratings

Over the past several years polarization-sensitive mode-coupling characteristics of tilted fiber Bragg gratings have been exploited for the development of a number of useful devices, including fiber polarimeters, gain flattening filters, spectrum analyzers, and polarization-dependent-loss compensators. Although a variety of tools are available to model blazed grating responses, to our knowledge a simplified explanation of the parametric dependencies and potential behavior has never been fully presented, making the optimization of these components difficult and elusive at times. We provide a thorough, intuitive discussion of these trends and possibilities as observed through an extensive theoretical and numerical analysis rooted in the volume current method. In addition to a review of the potential limitations and shortcomings of this formulation, some rough guidelines for the manufacture of various devices are also disclosed.