Temperature dependent chromatic dispersion measurement using

long-period fiber grating

Young-Jae Kim, EunSeo Choi, Youngjoo Chung, Won-Taek Han, Un-Chul Paek,
and Byeong Ha Lee

Department of Information and Communications, Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology

1 Oryong-dong, Puk-gu, Kwangju, 500-712, Korea

ABSTRACT

A novel method for measuring the temperature-dependent chromatic dispersion of a fiber is proposed, which is based
on the interference fringe formed by a pair of long-period fiber gratings (LPGs). The effective index difference between
the fundamental core mode and a cladding mode was obtained from the interference fringe of the LPG pair. The order
of the involved cladding mode and the core size could be obtained from the general parameters of the fiber; the
numerical aperture and the cut-off wavelength. Using the obtained cladding mode order and the Sellmeier equation of
silica material for the cladding index, the refractive index of the fiber core was obtained by comparing the measured
effective index difference with the calculated one. Since the temperature-dependent Sellmeier equation of the cladding
material is already known, the temperature-dependent refractive index of the core can be obtained. Measured refractive
index of the core is fitted with a linear combination of the well-known Sellmeier equations of germanium and silica.
The concentration of germanium is used as the fitting parameter. The calculated chromatic dispersion is well matched
with the one measured with a conventional instrument within 0.2 ps/km/nm in a spectral range of from 1.3 µm to 1.6
µm at room temperature.

Keywords: fiber grating, chromatic dispersion.

1. INTRODUCTION

Single mode optical fiber is used for a high bit-rate transmission with a long repeater spacing due to the relatively low
loss of the silica. Measurements of single mode fiber structural and transmission characteristic are fundamental
knowledge for design and application of the fiber. Especially chromatic dispersion, resulting from the material and
waveguide dispersion, is essential in order to control the pulse broadening in DWDM communication system.
Chromatic dispersion has already been numerically obtained from the refractive index of bulk silica and doped silica
samples.1 There were many research done to measure the chromatic dispersion. The measurements have been
accomplished using the pulse delay method, pulse synchronization method, and the interferometric method.2-4 The first
two methods need rather long fiber but the last method offers the chromatic dispersion for a short fiber.
Fiber gratings have been studied in various regions of DWDM system; optical filter, gain flattening, and dispersion
compensation, and so on.5 Also lots of application using grating technology have been realized for optical sensor
systems.6 Especially long-period fiber gratings have been studied intensively for sensor applications as they have larger
temperature, strain, and refractive index coefficients than Bragg gratings.7
Recently, temperature dependent refractive index measurement was reported using a pair of long-period fiber
grating.8 While we acquired the temperature dependent refractive index of the core, the discrete data at several
wavelengths were insufficient for chromatic dispersion measurement using long-period fiber gratings. What we need is
to find the most suitable fitting function for the material index of the core. Usually three term Sellmeier or five term
Sellmeier equations have been used to least-square fit experimentally obtained group delay for chromatic dispersion
measurement.9 If we try to measure chromatic dispersion of the fiber from the refractive indices in tens of nanometer

Correspondence: B. H. Lee; Email: leebh@kjist.ac.kr; Telephone: +82-026-970-2234; Fax: +82-062-970-2204.

Optical Fiber and Fiber Component Mechanical Reliability and Testing II, M. John Matthewson,
110 Charles R. Kurkjian, Editors, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4639 (2002) © 2002 SPIE · 0277-786X/02/$15.00

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 spectral range of a stop band in a long-period fiber grating, it is crucial to decide the form of fitting function. The
measured refractive index of the core was well fitted with the linear combination of pure germanium and pure silica
Sellmeier equations.10-11 As the core of the conventional single mode fiber is usually doped with germanium, it is a
reasonable choice to decide germanium concentration as a variable of the combined Sellmeier equations. The material
indicies of the core at different temperatures are fitted with the linear combinations of two Sellmeier equations by
varying the concentration of germanium as a variable. Finally chromatic dispersion of the fiber is measured at each
temperature using temperature dependent Sellmeier equation of pure silica for the cladding.12

2. THEORY

2.1 Differential Effective Index

The transmission spectrum of a pair of long-period fiber grating with two identical gratings can be expressed as

T pair = T1 + α 2 R1 − 2T1 R1α cos Ψ ,

2 2
(1)

where T1 and R1 are the core and a cladding mode intensities of a long-period fiber grating, respectively.13 α is the loss
factor of a cladding mode, and ψ is the phase difference made by the different optical paths of the core mode and a
cladding mode. As the interference patterns are generated in each stop band due to different cladding mode orders, there
would be a number of stop band built in the spectral range. The differential effective indices at lower and upper fringe
peaks are given as

∆neff (λ p ,q , T ) =  + λp , q ,
 1 q (2)
Λ L

where Λ is the periodicity of the grating, L is the length between the centers of both gratings, and T is temperature.14
The relative fringe order q is zero at the band center and then the differential effective index at the band center is given
using the well known phase matching condition of a long-period fiber grating. The thermal expansion of the fiber was
neglected in the analysis as the peak -wavelength shift is dominantly varied by the variation of the refractive index of the
core and cladding.15 Furthermore most conventional optical fiber has pure silica as its cladding material, and we can
obtain the cladding mode order of the specific stop band with the knowledge of the core radius and the material index of
core.

2.2 Cladding Mode Order

The order of cladding mode can be obtained with the rough information of the core; numerial aperture and cut-off
wavelength. Since the cladding radius is much larger than that of the core in a conventional single mode fiber, the
effective index of the cladding mode shows small dependence on the core parameters.16 We could calculate the rough
values of the material index and the radius of the core with the numerical aperture and cut-off wavelength.14 By using
these two values, the cladding mode index of the fiber can be obtained at each fringe peak. Adding this to the measured
differential index yields the effective index of the core. If cladding mode orders were selected correctly, the core mode
index would be well fitted with a polynomial function. Although this method shows good efficiency in cladding mode
order decision, the core mode index has unnegligible error due to insufficient core information.

2.3 Temperature Dependent Refractive Index

Though we already found the core mode index of the fiber, it includes uncertainty because we derived the material
index of the core from the numerical aperture at the cut-off wavlength. Also the refractive index of the core is not given
as a function of temperatue yet. More accurate material index of the core can be obtained by using the temperature
dependent Sellmeier equation of pure silica for the material index calculation of the cladding.12 The temperature
dependent differential effective index at each wavelength were numerically obtained by varying the material index of
the core.8 Material index of the core was then chosen to make the least difference between the measured differential
effective index and the numerically calculated.

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 2.4 Temperature Dependent Chromatic Disperion
As we know the refractive index of the fiber as a function of wavelength and temperature simultaneously, the
temperature dependent chromatic dispersion at different temperature would be obtained. With the knowledge of the
core radius and the material index of the core, the effective index of the core extracted from material and waveguide
dispersion can be numerically calculated. As the spectral bandwidth of a long-period fiber grating is about tens of
nanometer at each stop band and the effective index of the core mode has linear dependence on wavelength, the
important factor for chromatic dispersion measurement is the order of the polynomial fitting function to predict the
refractive index of the spectral regions apart from the stop band by hundreds of nanometer. Even the second order
polynomial function makes good agreement with the measured refractive index of the core in a stop band, the second
derivative of the index for material dispersion brings about a trivial result. The most commonly used one is the
Sellmeier equation.9 It serves the full information of the material index as a function of wavelength. The doping
concentration and the number of doping materials should be considered to choose the coefficients of the equation.
We used the well-known Sellmeier equations of Fleming and Shibata for germanium and silica, respectively as a
fitting function of the measured refractive index of the core. Linear combination of both Sellmeier equations as a
function of germanium concentration serves as a function of the temperature dependent refractive index of the core.
Also the temperature dependent Sellmeier equation of pure silica was used for the material index function of the
cladding.12 As the thermo-optic coefficient of germanium doped silica glass increases as the increment of the doping
concentration, the linearly combined Sellmeier equation as a function of germanium concentration is considered to be
acceptable for the fitting function of the germanium doped core fiber.17 With Sellmeier equations and the measured
radius of the core, the temperature dependent chromatic dispersion can be obtained.

3. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULT

3.1 Cladding Mode Order Verification

Two LPG pairs were fabricated with a KrF Excimer laser in a Samsung’s conventional single mode fiber having the
numerical aperture, 0.11 and the cut-off wavelength, 1.23 µm. The fabrication condition was set as 20 Hz and 122 mJ.
The exposed time was 152 seconds. The core of the sample was doped with germanium only. The length of each grating
was 20 mm and the separation between grating centers was 200 mm for both samples. The first LPG pair was made by
using an amplitude mask of a 550 µm periodicity and had three stop bands within the spectral range of 1.2 ~ 1.7 µm.
While two stop bands were observed in the other LPG pair made with a 600 µm periodicity. Figure 1 shows the
transmission spectrum of a pair of long-period fiber grating with a 550 µm periodicity.

-2
Tra nsm ission [d B]

-4

-6

-8

-10

-12

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

W a ve len gth [ µ m ]

Figure 1. Transmission spectrum of a pair of long-period fiber grating with 550 µm periodicity and 200 mm separation.

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 Figure 2 is the measured differential effective indices of stop bands constructed using a 550 µm and 600 µm periodicity,
respectively using Eq. (2). Dotted lines are intentionally inserted to show the good correspondence at the center

-3
X1 0

55 0 µ m
2.8
60 0 µ m

Differe ntia l effe ctive in d e x

λ / Λ ( Λ = 550 µ m )
2.7

2.6
λ / Λ ( Λ = 600 µ m )

2.5

2.4

2.3
1.3 0 1.3 5 1.4 0 1.4 5 1.5 0 1.5 5 1.6 0
W a ve le n g th [ µ m ]

Figure 2. The measured differential effective indices using 550 and 600 µm periodicity under same UV fluence.

wavelength of each stop band by the phase matching condition. The first stop bands of a sample with a 550 µm
periodicity and 600 µm periodicity have the same cladding mode order. Also the second stop band of a 550 µm sample
and the first stop band of a 600 µm sample were built and partially overlapped around 1.4 µm. From the given
numerical aperture and cut-off wavelength, we can get the core radius and the rough value of the germanium
concentration. The radius was 4.335 µm and germanium concentration was 2.926 mole%. The cladding mode order can
be verified by adding the calculated cladding mode index to the measured differential effective index. The result is
simply the core mode index. As the cladding mode index is insensitive to the core information due to the larger size
compared the core, the uncertainty brought by the approximated information of the core would be negligible for the
case of cladding mode order decision.16 If the mode order were selected properly, the data points would be well aligned
along a smooth curve. Figure 3 shows the core mode index after adding proper cladding mode index with right cladding
mode order decision at each stop band. The first stop band, which was generated by using a 550 µm periodicity, was

1 .44 9
550 µ m
600 µ m
C ore m o de ind ex

1 .44 8

1 .44 7

N .A. 0.1 1 λ c = 1 .23 µ m

1 .44 6

1 .44 5
1 .30 1 .35 1 .40 1 .45 1 .50 1 .55 1 .60
W a ve len gth [ µ m ]

Figure 3. Core mode index by adding cladding mode index to the measured differential effective index. The fiber has 0.11 as
numerical aperture and 1.23 µm as cut-off wavelength. Each group of data was obtained in the same cladding mode order.

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 verified to be HE14 mode. Core mode index around 1.4 µm spectral region were obtained from two samples. Though the
cladding mode orders were different, the calculated core mode indices were well matched. To prove the insensitivity of
cladding mode index on the core information, we iterated the mentioned procedure for three types of optical fiber. It is
also transparent from fig. 4 that the cladding mode index is not changed much by the material index of the core and the
core radius variation.

1.449 1.449
550 µ m 550 µ m
600 µ m 600 µ m
C ore m ode index

Core m ode index

1.448 1.448

1.447 1.447

N .A . 0.11 λ c =1 .28µ m N.A . 0.12 λ c =1.23 µ m

1.446 1.446

1.445 1.445
1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45 1.50 1.55 1.60 1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45 1.50 1.55 1.60
W avlength [µ m ] W avlength [µ m]

Figure 4. Core mode index in two types of optical fiber. Numerical aperture and cut-off wavelength were varied by 50 nm and 10 %
from the condition suggested in fig. 3, respectively. No outstanding difference for core mode index was observed in both cases.

3.2 Temperature Dependent Refractive Index Measurement Using Long-Period Fiber Grating
To measure the temperature dependent refractive index, we placed the pair of long-period fiber grating in the oven and
varied the temperature. The fiber was fixed at both ends and remained flat during the temperature sensitivity
experiment. Bending effect was not observed during the experiment. The periodicity was 550 µm and the separation
was 200 mm. Figure 5 depicts the shift of the fringe peaks and whole envelope. The cladding mode order was verified
to be HE14 mode using the previously mentioned method. Whole fringes and envelope shifted by the rate of 0.06 nm/oC.
At 60 oC, π phase shift was observed in the whole fringes of the stop band compared to fringes at 30 oC. The differential
effective indices at fringe peaks were measured using Eq. (2) and plotted in Fig. 6 at different temperature.

-5
Tran sm issio n [dB ]

o
-10 30 C
o
60 C
o
90 C
-15

-20
1.5 3 1.5 5 1.5 7 1.5 9 1.6 1
W avele ng th [ µ m ]

Figure 5. The shift of whole fringe pattern and envelope of the long-period fiber grating due to temperature. The shift rate was 0.06
nm/oC.

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 -3
X1 0

2.87
o
30 C

D iffe re ntia l e ffe ctive in de x

o
60 C
o
90 C
2.86

2.85

2.84

1.53 1.55 1.57 1.59 1.61

W avele ng th [ µ m ]

Figure 6. The measured differential effective index at discrete temperature.

We meaured the material index of the core at 30 oC and fitted it with the linearly combined Sellmeier equation of 3.17
mole% germanium.10-11 The result is shown in fig. 7. Filled circles are the measured refractive index using the
suggested method and open circles are the refractive index from the proper Sellmier equation. The order of the
difference between the measured data and the fitted was about 10-6. The error increased in the longer wavelength region.
The maximum difference was about 4.5×10-6.

-6
X10
1 .4 49 0

4
R e fra ctive in de x o f co re

1 .4 48 8
D ifferen ce

1 .4 48 6
M easured
F itted 2
D ifference
1 .4 48 4

1 .4 48 2 0
1 .5 3 1 .5 5 1 .5 7 1 .5 9 1 .6 1
W a vlen gth [ µ m ]

Figure 7. The refractive index of the core at 30 oC. The measured material index were fitted with the proper Sellmeier equation and
plotted together. The maximum difference was about 4.5×10-6.

3.3 Chromatic Dispersion Measurement Using Long-Period Fiber Grating

Finally we obtained the chromatic dispersion of the fiber by using the proper Sellmier equations for the material index
of the core and the temperature dependent Sellmeier equation for cladding. Chromatic dispersions measured at 30 oC
and 60 oC are shown in fig. 8 and fig. 9, respectively. Filled circles are obtained using CD400, chromatic dispersion
measurement system of PerkinElmer Instruments. Maximum and minimum differences were 0.2 ps/km/nm and 0.07
ps/km/nm, respectively.

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 20
0.2 0

Ch ro m atic d ispe rsion [p s/km /n m ]

16

Diffe ren ce [ps/km /nm ]

12 C D 400 0.1 6
M eas urem ent
D ifference
8
o
30 C
4 0.1 2

0
0.0 8
-4

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

W avele ng th [ µ m ]

Figure 8. Chromatic dispersion measurement using the suggested method at 30 oC. Relatively small difference were made in C+L
band region.

20
Ch ro m a tic d isp ersio n [ps/km /nm ]

o
C D 400 60 C 0.2 0
M eas urem ent
16 D ifference

Diffe ren ce [p s/km /n m ]

12 0.1 5

8
0.1 0
4

0
0.0 5
-4

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

W avele ng th [ µ m ]

Figure 9. Chromatic dispersion measurement using the suggested method at 60 oC.

4. CONCLUSION

We proposed a novel method to measure the temperature dependent chromatic dispersion of the conventional single
mode fiber using a pair of long-period fiber grating pair. The cladding mode order was defined using the provided
numerical aperture and cut-off wavelength of the fiber. With the knowledge of the cladding mode order and core radius,
we could obtain accurate material index of the core by adopting the temperature dependent Sellmeier equation of pure
silica as the refractive index of the cladding. And then the material index of the core was fitted with the linearly
combined Sellmeier equations of pure silica and pure germanium at each temperature. The temperature dependent
refractive index of the cladding was calculated using adopting the temperature dependent Sellmeier equation of pure
silica. Finally the chromatic dispersion was numerically found at each temperature. The difference between of the
measured chromatic dispersion and the chromatic dispersion obtained using chromatic dispersion measurement
equipment was under 0.2 ps/km/nm.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was partially supported by KOSEF through UFON, an ERC Program, by KISTEP through Critical
Technology 21 Program, and by Brain Korea 21 Program of MOE, Korea.

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