Bending sensitivity of in-series long-period fiber gratings

The interference fringes formed in a long-period fiber grating pair are sensitive to the loss in the cladding mode, which can be induced by bending or by coating on the fiber. Assuming that there is no loss and that both gratings are identical, the interference fringes are shown to have 100% contrast when each grating has 50% transmissivity. By contrast, if the cladding mode is absorbed or scattered the fringe contrast is shown to be degraded. The spectral behaviors of a long-period fiber grating pair with loss is analyzed by the coupled-mode theory and is compared with experimental results. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.