Giant Bragg Wavelength Tuning of Tunable Hollow Waveguide Bragg Reflector

We demonstrate a giant Bragg wavelength tuning with a grating loaded hollow waveguide Bragg reflector. An air-core thickness change of a hollow waveguide enables us to achieve a large propagation constant change over few tens percent, which would be useful for various tunable optical devices. Our observed Bragg-wavelength tuning range is over 160 nm at an air-core thickness change from 10.7 to 1.8 µm, which corresponds to a propagation constant change of over 10%. This is the record large tuning value ever reported in conventional tuning schemes such as thermo-optic or electro-optic effects.