Apodized, plane-by-plane written chirped fiber Bragg gratings in polarization-maintaining fibers for dispersion control in all-fiber ultrafast lasers

We present a femtosecond laser written, apodized chirped fiber Bragg grating (acFBG) used for dispersion control inside picosecond all-fiber lasers. A fiber fixation setup enables a plane-by-plane (pbp) written acFBG in a standard, polarization-maintaining fiber by applying a beam-slit configuration. The spectral specifications of the acFBG are examined in detail, and the grating is validated inside a mode-locked fiber laser oscillator. This letter provides a route to the fast prototyping of acFBGs with customized parameters for use as dispersion compensating elements inside ultrafast all-fiber lasers.