High-speed high-resolution optical correlation-domain reflectometry without using electrical spectrum analyzer

Abstract: We propose a newly configured optical correlation-domain reflectometry (OCDR) without the use of an electrical spectrum analyzer (ESA) for high-speed distributed reflectivity measurement with an enhanced spatial resolution. First, the operation of ESA-free OCDR is analyzed by numerical simulation, the results of which show the potential of the configuration to perform distributed reflectivity measurement with an improved spatial resolution. Subsequently, the simulation results are verified by comparison experiments, where distributed reflectivity measurements along a 32-m-long single-mode fiber joint with multiple connectors are performed using both conventional (with averaging) and ESA-free OCDR configurations (without averaging) at a repetition rate of 100 Hz. The widths of the reflectivity peaks experimentally obtained by the conventional and ESA-free OCDR configurations are 22.9 cm and 7.0 cm, respectively. Finally, we experimentally evaluated the performance of the ESA-free OCDR at higher repetition rates, achieving 6.3-cm spatial resolution at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. This result indicates that the ESA-free OCDR can perform a distributed reflectivity measurement with an improved spatial resolution at a higher operation speed than ever.