We investigated the fiber length dependence of the phase change near 1580 nm induced by 980-nm pump beam in Yb/sup 3+/-Al/sup 3+/ co-doped optical glass fibers by use of a long-period fiber grating pair. As the pumping power increased, the phase change linearly increased and then was gradually saturated. Both the saturated phase change and the saturation pump power increased with the increase of the fiber length. The saturated phase change in Yb/sup 3+/-Al/sup 3+/ co-doped fibers of 16.7, 33.2, and 43.5 cm was found to be /spl sim/0.5, /spl sim/0.8, and /spl sim/1.0 rad, respectively. The saturation of the phase change is attributed to the saturation of the absorption from the finite ytterbium ions doped in the fibers.