Abstract
Summary form only given. Recently, chalcogenide glasses have generated much interest because of Kerr nonlinearities, which can be up to 600 times higher than in silica glass at the 1.55-/spl mu/m communication wavelength. Possible applications include low peak power, ultrafast all-optical switching using waveguide lengths of only a few centimeters embedded in a photonic circuit. Bragg gratings take an important place among the useful integrated components. They can be used as wavelength selective elements in wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks or as dispersion-compensating elements. We present novel technique for fabricating strong Bragg gratings in chalcogenide glass waveguides.