Abstract

We describe a novel optical correlation domain reflectometry technique based on coherence synchronization between probe and local lights. Coherence synchronization is realized by using artificially generated low coherence lights, which are controlled by arbitrary waveform generators. Thanks to the flexibility of the electronics, we can easily design the coherence characteristics of the artificially generated low coherence lights to yield a correlation gating that filters an autocorrelation of an original laser at an arbitrary delay. The correlation gating realized by coherence synchronization is effective as long as the measurement length is less than the coherence length of the original laser. We demonstrate the measurement of the Fresnel reflection at the end of an optical fiber by using coherence-synchronized optical frequency combs that have only one correlation peak in the fiber under test (FUT). The FUT is 100 m long, and the repetition rate of the optical frequency comb generated by cascaded electro-optic modulators is 9.5 GHz, which corresponds to a 10.5 mm spacing between the periodic correlation peaks. The proposed technique removes the restriction imposed by the periodic correlation peaks present in correlation-based measurement using an optical frequency comb.

© 2016 IEEE

Optical pulse compression reflectometry: proposal and proof-of-concept experiment

Weiwen Zou, Shuo Yang, Xin Long, and Jianping Chen
Opt. Express 23(1) 512-522 (2015)

Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry based on arbitrary waveform modulation: a theoretical study

Kohei Noda, Heeyoung Lee, Kentaro Nakamura, and Yosuke Mizuno
Opt. Express 29(9) 13794-13805 (2021)

Long-range vibration sensor based on correlation analysis of optical frequency-domain reflectometry signals

Zhenyang Ding, X. Steve Yao, Tiegen Liu, Yang Du, Kun Liu, Qun Han, Zhuo Meng, and Hongxin Chen
Opt. Express 20(27) 28319-28329 (2012)

Simplified optical correlation-domain reflectometry without reference path

Makoto Shizuka, Neisei Hayashi, Yosuke Mizuno, and Kentaro Nakamura
Appl. Opt. 55(15) 3925-3928 (2016)

Proposal of Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry (BOCDR)

Yosuke Mizuno, Weiwen Zou, Zuyuan He, and Kazuo Hotate
Opt. Express 16(16) 12148-12153 (2008)