A system and method for producing a Bragg grating. A system and a method for apodization of gratings. The system and method for producing a grating include splitting a beam and reflecting one split beam an odd number of times and the other an even number of times before the two are allowed to interfere within a photosensitive target. When the original beam is scanned in predetermined directions, the split beams scan the target while interfering within the target. The original beam is scanned such that an intersection point of the reflected split beams moves along a bisector of the two split beams. In the system and method for apodizing, scanning of the interfering beams along a length of the target may be controlled to yield a substantially uniform average refractive index for the apodized grating that is being recorded in the photosensitive target medium.