Time-expanded FOTDR based on Orthogonal Polarization Frequency Comb generation

Sevillano, Pascual (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Preciado-Garbayo, Javier ; Izquierdo, David (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Soriano-Amat, Miguel ; Martin-Lopez, Sonia ; Gonzalez-Herraez, Miguel ; Fernández-Ruiz, María R.

Resumen: Phase-sensitive Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry (ΦOTDR) has emerged as an effective and high-performance solution within the realm of Distributed Optical Fiber Sensing (DOFS) technologies, which has promoted its use in an ever-growing number of fields. The challenges arisen by new operation fields demand surpassing the historical trade-offs in this technology, specially aiming for higher resolution without jeopardizing the system simplicity and cost-effectiveness. In this context, time-expanded (TE-)ΦOTDR has been recently proposed as a DOFS solution delivering cm-range resolution with sub-MHz detection and acquisition bandwidths. It is based on the use of an interferometric scheme that employs a dual frequency comb (DFC), consisting of two mutually coherent optical frequency combs with dissimilar repetition rates. In this paper, we present a novel DFC generation scheme for TE-ΦOTDR that exploits the polarization orthogonality. In particular, our approach considerably increases the common path followed by the two frequency combs, thus reducing instability and noise as compared to the conventional generation scheme. Additionally, we employ an IQ modulation scheme with two PRBS generators that increases the scalability of the interrogator while severely reducing its cost and complexity. Results show a reduction in the noise amplitude spectral density especially at low frequency values, which corroborates the stability enhancement of this proposed architecture as compared to the conventional scheme.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2024.3396221

Año: 2024

Publicado en: Journal of Lightwave Technology 42, 8 (2024), 6476-6482
ISSN: 0733-8724

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA-FSE/T20-23R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2020-114916RB-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/DI-17-09169

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)

Área (Departamento): Área Física Aplicada (Dpto. Física Aplicada)