Correcting for spatial-resolution degradation mechanisms in OFDR via inline auxiliary points

Phase noise elimination in frequency sweeping interferometry based on a common-path interferometer

We propose a common-path interferometer (CPI) method to suppress the ambient and laser phase noise in frequency sweeping interferometry. The CPI realizes the multiplexing of the main and auxiliary interferometer to ensure the common-mode characteristic of the interference phase noise, which can be eliminated by signal mixing. In experiments, we obtain a dynamic range of up to 110 dB. Compared with the compensation method using a separated auxiliary interferometer, the CPI method improves the dynamic range by 10 dB and is immune to ambient noise. The proposed method enables high-precision distributed polarization measurements of optical fibers and devices.

Ultra-long range optical frequency domain reflectometry using a coherence-enhanced highly linear frequency-swept fiber laser source

We report on an ultra-long range optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) using a coherence-enhanced highly linear frequency-swept fiber laser source based on an optoelectronic phase-locked loop (OPLL). The frequency-swept fiber laser is locked to an all-fiber-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) to suppress sweep nonlinearity and enhance the laser coherence, leading to a high coherence linear frequency sweep of 1 GHz in the duration time of 25 ms. This enables the OFDR to realize an ultra-long range measurement with a high spatial resolution. As a result, we obtain a 10 cm transform-limited spatial resolution at a 20 km fiber within 25 ms measurement time, and a 72 cm spatial resolution over an entire 200 km fiber link within 5 ms measurement time. The proposed reflectometry provides a high-performance solution with both high spatial resolution and ultra-long measurement range for field real-time fiber network monitoring and sensing applications.

High resolution DAS via sinusoidal frequency scan OFDR (SFS-OFDR)

There are many advantages to using direct frequency modulation for OFDR based DAS. However, achieving sufficiently linear scan via direct frequency modulation is challenging and poses limits on the scan parameters. A novel method for analyzing sinusoidal frequency modulated light is presented and demonstrated for both static and dynamic sensing. SFS-OFDR projects the measured signal onto appropriate sinusoidal phase terms to obtain spatial information. Thus, by using SFS-OFDR on sinusoidal modulated light it is possible to make use of the many advantages offered by direct frequency modulation without the limitations posed by the linearity requirement.

Dynamic optical frequency domain reflectometry

We describe a dynamic Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) system which enables real time, long range, acoustic sensing at high sampling rate. The system is based on a fast scanning laser and coherent detection scheme. Distributed sensing is obtained by probing the Rayleigh backscattered light. The system was tested by interrogation of a 10 km communication type single mode fiber and successfully detected localized impulse and sinusoidal excitations.