Patent attributes
A chirped Bragg grating is fabricated in an optical fiber by exposing the fiber to a coherent beam of light through a parallel phase mask having a series of progressively chirped segments produced on a lithography tool. The chirped phase mask is fabricated by exposing a photoresist-coated substrate to an image writing element such as an electron beam or a laser according to a set of parameters provided to the lithography tool. The parameters include a basic grating pattern for each segment, a value that defines the expansion or contraction of the grating pattern and an axis location to which the grating pattern is to be written to the substrate. By selecting machine commands that implement these parameters with a minimum throughput overhead, the mask can be produced in a reduced time, and therefore with increased accuracy.
