Millimeter-resolution long-range OFDR using ultra-linearly 100 GHz-swept optical source realized by injection-locking technique and cascaded FWM process.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a millimeter-resolution long-range optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) using an ultra-linearly 100-GHz swept optical source realized by injection-locking technique and cascaded four-wave-mixing (FWM) process. The ultra-linear sweep is realized using an external modulation method with a linearly swept radio frequency (RF) signal. The RF signal sweeps from 16 GHz to 19.3 GHz, and the slave laser is injection-locked to the 8th-order sideband of the master laser, achieving a frequency sweeping span of ~25 GHz. By using the injection-locked frequency-swept laser as the optical source of OFDR, we obtain a spatial resolution of 4.2 mm over 10-km measurement range. A polarization beat length of 10.5 cm is measured benefiting from the high spatial resolution. To improve the spatial resolution further, FWM process is used to broaden the frequency sweeping span. Frequency sweeping span of ~100 GHz is achieved with cascaded FWM. We demonstrate a 1.1-mm spatial resolution over 2-km measurement range with the proposed ultra-linearly swept optical source.