OVERVIEW

Fiber Bragg Grating mirrors are critical components used to design laser cavities and are ideal for high power fiber lasers. iXblue’s mirrors have been customized to address the specific requirements of high efficiency and laser applications. These wavelength-selective mirrors are available on a complete range of specialty fibers, ensuring high power handling and reliability in both high power and standard applications. The optimized manufacturing process and testing guarantee their long-term reliability in fiber lasers. Additionally, iXblue offers a dissipative package for thermal management of the FBG to ensure stability at high optical power.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Low thermal effect
• Single mode or double clad fiber (in-house fiber)
• Custom specifications available
• Specific recoating for pump guidance
• Full passive assembly available
• Packaging options: bare FBG and heat dissipative package
• PM (Polarization Maintaining) available
• Custom design on request

Advantages of dissipative package

• Thermal and mechanical shock protection for FBG mirrors and splices
• Highly reduced wavelength drift

Applications

• High power applications

OVERVIEW

iXblue’s Gain Flattening Filters (GFF), based on Fiber Bragg Grating technology, offer an easy and effective solution to flatten the gain in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) systems. Our highly flexible production lines enable fast prototyping, and the FBG technology ensures low systematic errors, minimizing stochastic accumulation of the error function in cascading GFFs. The iXtra technology, utilizing chirped and slanted FBG written on our specialty fibers, pushes the limits of flattening by achieving very low ripple and high return loss.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Customized filter profile in the C, L, and S bands
• Tight compensation of gain fluctuations
• Low excess loss
• Low magnitude ripple (down to 0.02 dBpp) with iXtra technology
• Dissipative filtering with iXtra technology
• Low systematic errors
• Weak Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) and Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)
• PM (Polarization Maintaining) fiber available
• Meets Telcordia GR-1209 or GR-1221 requirements
• Custom design on request
• Athermal or non-athermal package, recoat

Application

• WDM in optical fiber communication (Long-haul, Metro)
• Clean-up filtering
• ASE (Amplified Spontaneous Emission) source flattening, spectral shaping
• Raman amplifier

OVERVIEW

In the IXC-FBG-PS design, a Phase Shift (PS) is introduced within the middle of the stop band. This PS creates a sharp resonance peak in the transmission spectrum response and features less than 1 dB of insertion loss. This narrow bandwidth transmission filter is suitable for telecom and sensing applications and can also be used in distributed feedback (DFB) fiber laser cavities.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Very narrowband transmission filter with bandwidth less than 1 GHz
• Low insertion loss at the resonant peak
• Tailored transmission by adjusting the phase shift location and amount
• High temperature stability with 1 pm/°C
• Tunability of +/- 100 pm

Applications

• Telecom wavelength demultiplexing
• Filtering
• High-resolution sensing (temperature, strain, ultrasonic waves)

OVERVIEW

iXblue’s single-frequency fiber lasers use UV Bragg grating technology applied to active rare-earth photosensitive fibers. The ultra-short cavity length and phase-shifted design provide ultra-narrow linewidth and robust mode-hop-free properties, ideal for various sensor applications. Available in 1.5 and 2 µm upon request.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Narrow linewidth
• Single longitudinal mode
• Mode-hop-free
• Linear polarization
• Low intrinsic phase noise
• WDM compatible
• Low optical feedback sensitivity
• 125 or 80 μm clad diameter
• Wavelength range: 1530 – 1565 nm and 2 µm
• PM (Polarization Maintaining) available
• Sidelobe Suppression Ratio (SMSR) > 50 dB
• Output power: > 10 mW (> 10 µW for low noise version)

Applications

• Acoustic sensing
• Hydrophone
• Cold atom
• Interferometry
• Spectroscopy

OVERVIEW

Our radiation-hardened Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) are ideal for diagnostic or wavelength selection devices in harsh radiative environments. These FBGs are written on specially designed radiation-hardened optical fibers, minimizing end-of-life losses. Our FBG manufacturing process ensures spectral response stability against combined radiation effects (X-rays, γ-rays, neutrons, protons) and high temperatures. Field proven up to MGy level and 350°C, suitable for space missions (63 MeV protons) and nuclear reactors (~5∙10¹⁹ n/cm²).

HIGHLIGHTS

• Based on proprietary iXblue low Radiation Induced Attenuation fiber: 150 dB/km up to 10 MGy (γ-dose) at high dose rate
• Stabilized optical response in harsh environments due to dedicated FBG manufacturing process: suppression of radiation wavelength shift
• Field tested: temperature sensing with 1°C accuracy up to MGy level and up to 350°C using IXC-FBG-RAD components

Applications

• Discrete point sensing, FBG-based mirrors
• Strain sensors and wavelength selective mirrors for harsh environments
• FBG suitable for Tokamak environments
• Nuclear environments
• High energy physics
• Space

OVERVIEW

iXblue offers a broad range of Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) for various applications in telecommunications, sensing, harsh environments, research, and development. Our expertise in FBG manufacturing enables us to produce various filters on a range of in-house fibers. We are equipped to adapt our services to meet your needs, from quick prototyping to volume production.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Wide range of wavelengths from 400 to 2200 nm
• Customized spectral shapes & grating types (apodized, FP cavity)
• Insensitive thermal packaging for minimal wavelength shift
• High reflectivity insulation (SLSR)

Applications

• Laser diode stabilizers (LDS)
• Wavelength selective filters for telecommunications (WDM Mux/Demux, slope filters) and other customer-specific applications (FBG)
• Broadband filters (BBF)
• Low thermal sensitivity FBG for narrow linewidth filter stabilization

OVERVIEW

iXblue provides the option to integrate one or multiple High Reflectivity Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) with customized central wavelengths ranging from 600 nm to 2100 nm on a single optical fiber without any splices. These FBGs are ideal for detecting strain, temperature, and pressure changes in various environments. Our specialty optical fibers are suitable for deep water, outer space, and harsh conditions with high temperatures or radiation.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Spliceless FBG array
• Low insertion loss
• Excellent SLSR (Sidelobe Suppression Ratio) up to 20 dB
• Customized FBG array configuration
• Wide range of wavelengths
• FBGs positioned at discrete points along a continuous fiber
• 125 or 80 µm cladding diameter
• Available on small cladding diameter fiber
• PM (Polarization Maintaining) available
• Up to 100 FBGs
• Available in SMF, PM, CMF, or other fiber types
• Wavelength range: 600 to 2100 nm

Applications

• Temperature and strain sensing
• Structural Health Monitoring (oil and gas, nuclear, aeronautic)
• Acoustic sensing

OVERVIEW

Leverage iXblue Photonics’ expertise in Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) and specialty fibers to develop your customized solutions. We offer splicing services for various specialty fibers (high power, large diameter, PM, tapers) along with adapted recoating and packaging solutions. Each sub-assembly is validated with a test report for final qualification, ensuring efficiency and temperature performance.

Design customization is available through R&D contracts under NDA agreements. Our capabilities include:

• Splicing: Standard fiber, double clad fiber, PM fiber, etc.
• Recoating: Low index polymer, high index polymer, etc.
• Dissipative or athermal package options: Provides thermal and mechanical shock protection for FBGs and splices
• Hydrogenation loading service
• Taper and fused long period gratings based on custom designs
• Optical fiber characterization
• Index profile measurement
• Fully equipped for up to 2 µm wavelength range

OVERVIEW

iXblue Photonics offers a range of Photosensitive Single Mode Fibers designed for Fiber Bragg Grating applications:

IXF-PHO-CMF and IXF-PHO-CMF-PM are engineered to suppress cladding mode losses (CMF Cladding Mode Free). These fibers have a mode field diameter comparable to most standard SMF, featuring low photosensitivity that can be enhanced with hydrogen loading. The main advantage is their ability to suppress cladding modes while maintaining extremely low birefringence and phase noise, making them suitable for gratings used in dispersion compensation.

IXF-PHO-CMS is designed to optimize channel spacing by adapting the cladding mode offset (CMS Cladding Mode Shifted). This fiber features a high germanium core concentration with low attenuation compared to exotic boron-doped core fibers, enabling high reflectivity gratings without hydrogen loading. The CMS series can shift cladding modes by up to 10 nm.

Photosensitive fibers offer uniform and controlled photosensitivity to conventional UV radiation techniques. Polyimide-coated versions are available for harsh environments.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Excellent cladding mode suppression
• Mode field diameter matched to transmission

Applications

• Fiber Bragg Gratings
• Gain Flattening Filters
• Broadband Filters
• Temperature and Strain Sensors