Beat-spectrum design for 100-km-range optical correlation-domain reflectometry with localized 15-cm resolution

Abstract

Conventional optical correlation-domain reflectometry (OCDR) based on sinusoidal frequency modulation exhibits a coupling between measurement range and spatial resolution because both are governed by the modulation frequency. Here, we formulate OCDR for arbitrary periodic frequency modulation and relate the modulation waveform to the resulting beat spectrum. By expressing the instantaneous optical frequency as a Fourier series, the beat spectrum is written as successive convolutions of the spectral contributions from the harmonic components. This formulation relates the harmonic composition of the modulation waveform to the spatial response. Periodic pseudo-random modulation (PPRM) was used to test this relation experimentally. We first measured the full-length reflectivity distribution along an approximately 100-km fiber using sinusoidal modulation and then performed PPRM-based random access interrogation near the fiber end. In the local measurement, two closely spaced reflection points were resolved with a correlation-peak width of approximately 15 cm. These results show that beat-spectrum design can reduce the range-resolution coupling of conventional sinusoidal-modulation OCDR and combine long-range surveying with localized high-resolution interrogation.