A new method of modulating the coupling coefficient along the waveguide is proposed. The effect of our method, which uses a nonperiodic sampled grating, is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally. A Bragg filter is fabricated on an InGaAsP/InP wafer utilizing the method, and the sidelobe level is shown to improve by 7 dB compared with a conventional filter with a uniform coupling coefficient. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with calculations.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>