For demonstrating widely tunable external cavity lasers operating for near-infrared (NIR) wavelength, a flexible polymer waveguide with an imbedded Bragg grating is incorporated. Due to the superior flexibility of the polymer material, the reflection wavelength of the Bragg grating is widely tunable by imposing tensile and compressive strains on the flexible Bragg grating. A third-order Bragg grating is formed on the device for facilitating the fabrication method. With a superluminescent laser diode as a gain medium of ECL, the tunable laser exhibited output power of -3 dBm and a tuning range of 32 nm.