High Resolution PNC-OFDR With Suppressed Fading Noise for Dispersive Media Measurement

Author

Koshikiya, Y. ; Xinyu Fan ; Ito, Fumihiko ; Zuyuan He ; Hotate, Kazuo

Author_Institution

NTT Access Network Service Syst. Labs., NTT Corp., Tsukuba, Japan

Volume

31

Issue

6

fYear

2013

fDate

15-Mar-13

Firstpage

866

Lastpage

873

Abstract

We show that fading noise in phase-noise compensated optical frequency domain reflectometry (PNC-OFDR) can be effectively reduced by applying an optical comb light source without any degradation in the reflectometry performance. The optical comb light source provides broad wavelength tunability, which is required for the frequency shift averaging (FSAV) for fading noise reduction while maintaining a narrow linewidth of the fiber laser used as a seed lightwave. We also clarify that PNC-OFDR with a reference interferometer simultaneously compensates for both phase noise and group velocity dispersion (GVD) induced by wideband measurement and a dispersive medium. These PNC-OFDR functions enable us to realize a high accuracy measurement of Rayleigh scattering level with low fading noise and high spatial resolution over 10 km range.

Keywords

Rayleigh scattering; fibre lasers; optical fibre networks; phase noise; reflectometry; PNC-OFDR; Rayleigh scattering level; dispersive media measurement; dispersive medium; fading noise reduction; fiber laser; frequency shift averaging; group velocity dispersion; optical comb light source; phase noise; phase-noise compensated optical frequency domain reflectometry; reference interferometer; reflectometry performance; seed lightwave; suppressed fading noise; wavelength tunability; wideband measurement; Fading; Optical fiber dispersion; Optical fibers; Optical variables measurement; Phase noise; Spatial resolution; Fading noise; optical fiber measurements; reflectometry;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2013.2238505

Filename

6407617