Abstract

A high performance optical fiber, fabricated using femtosecond micro-machining, for distributed Rayleigh sensing is presented. The fiber contains reflection points that increase the intensity of the back-reflected signal by two orders of magnitude. This removes the need for the amplification of the back reflected signal. Optical side scattering radiometry measurements revealed reflection points caused an average loss of −46 dBm. A fiber fabricated with a reflector resolution of 1 m provided an increase in the total fiber attenuation of 0.3 dBkm⁻¹.

© 2018 The Author(s)