Optical Delay Amplified by Chirped Fiber Bragg Gratings

We report a novel optical delay line that can be implemented using only optical fiber and fiber devices without the need for any bulk-optic devices such as lens, prism, and moving mirror. The dispersive property of a chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) is exploited to get the delay. The proposed delay line constitutes two identical CFBGs cascaded in the reverse order with one of them being strained. Analysis reveals that the small displacement or the strain applied on the CFBG is effectively amplified in the delay line by the ratio of the minimum resonant wavelength and the reflection bandwidth of the CFBG. The dispersion properties of the CFBG with and without the strain are analyzed in detail. The theoretical performance of the proposed delay line is also discussed. Applications of the proposed delay line are expected in the field of high-speed optical coherence tomograpy.