Control over Photo-inscription and Thermal Annealing to Obtain High-quality Bragg Gratings in Doped PMMA Optical Fibers

Bragg gratings are photo-inscribed in trans-4-stilbenemethanol doped PMMA fibers using a 325 nm He-Cd laser and a phase mask. Two distinct behaviors are reported depending on the laser power density. In the high-density regime with 637  mW/mm, the grating reflectivity is stable over time after the writing process, but the reflected spectrum is of limited quality, as the grating length is limited to the laser width (1.2 mm). The beam is then enlarged to 6 mm, decreasing the power density to 127  mW/mm. In this case, the grating reflectivity strongly decays after the writing process. A fortunate property here results from the recovery of the initial reflectivity using a post-inscription thermal annealing. Both behaviors are attributed to the evolution between trans- and cis-isomers.