payload with the 1.244-Gb/s label was demonstrated. The results showed small power penalty as much as 0.2 dB in payload transmission, which arises from crosstalk with the label, and the CS-SH-SCM labeling technique showed increased capability for multiple-span transmission of the payload with successive label swapping. ACKNOWLEDGMENTThis work was partially supported by the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) through the OIRC project.

A focused carbon dioxide laser beam is used to microstructure fibers that have already been narrowed by conventional fiber tapering. We describe three new miniature devices made with this technique: a fused fiber microcoupler with an interaction length of 200 mum, a long-period grating made from a periodic chain of microtapers, and a new type of prolate whispering-gallery mode microcavity.

We report the development of a fiber taper and fused-fiber coupler fabrication rig that uses a scanning, focused, CO(2) laser beam as the heat source. As a result of the pointlike heat source and the versatility associated with scanning, tapers of any transition shape and uniform taper waist can be produced. Tapers with both a linear shape and an exponential transition shape were measured. The taper waist uniformity was measured and shown to be better than +/-1.2%. The rig was also used to make fused-fiber couplers. Couplers with excess loss below -0.1 dB were routinely produced.

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A simple and accurate wavemeter for measuring the wavelength of monochromatic light is described. The device uses the wavelength-dependent phase lag between principal polarization states of a length of birefringent material (retarder) as the basis for the measurement of the optical wavelength. The retarder is sandwiched between a polarizer and a polarizing beam splitter and is oriented such that its principal axes are 45 deg to the axis of the polarizer and the principal axes of the beam splitter. As a result of the disparity in propagation velocities between the principal polarization states of the retarder, the ratio of the optical power exiting the two ports of the polarizing beam splitter is wavelength dependent. If the input wavelength is known to be within a specified range, the measurement of the power ratio uniquely determines the input wavelength. The device offers the advantage of trading wavelength coverage for increased resolution simply through the choice of the retarder length. Implementations of the device employing both bulk-optic components and fiber-optic components are described, and the results of a laboratory test of a fiber-optic prototype are presented. The prototype had a wavelength accuracy of +/-0.03 nm.