Effect of asymmetric stress relaxation on the polarization-dependent transmission characteristics of a CO₂ laser-written long-period fiber grating

The effect of stress-induced birefringence on polarization-dependent transmission characteristics was thoroughly investigated for a long-period fiber grating (LPFG) that was fabricated by use of a stress relaxation method with a CO₂ laser. A series of two-dimensional axial stress profiles for one complete period of a LPFG was measured with an optical tomographic measurement technique. We found that the asymmetry in the stress distribution of the cladding was much larger than in the core of the LPFG. The splitting of polarization-dependent loss peaks in the optical transmission spectrum was calculated based on the measured asymmetric stress profiles and was compared with an experimental result.