US Patent 7184135 Refractometer with blazed bragg gratings

A refractometer with blazed Bragg gratings. In order to measure the refractive index of a medium, for example a liquid or a gas, the refractometer includes a waveguide having a blazed Bragg grating, the spectral response of which depends on the refractive index of the medium and a light source in order to make this light interact with the grating. Further, spectral analysis of the light which has interacted with the grating is performed, the spectrum provided by the spectral analysis is recovered, and, from the recovered spectrum, the spectral response of the grating is correlated with one value of the refractive index of the medium.