Modulation instability-induced visibility fading in phase-sensitive OTDR

Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (ΦOTDR) is a simple and effective tool that allows the distributed monitoring of vibrations along single-mode fibers. In this letter we study the effects of modulation instability (MI) in long-range ΦOTDR over conventional optical fibers. We demonstr...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Fidalgo Martins, Hugo|||0000-0003-3927-8125, Martín López, Sonia|||0000-0001-5203-6206, Corredera Guillén, Pedro, Salgado, P., Frazão, O., González Herráez, Miguel|||0000-0003-2555-2971
Format: article
Publication Date:2013
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repository:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/27541
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/27541
https://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2026062
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Modulation instability
Phase-sensitive OTDR
Distributed measurements
Optical fiber sensors
Ciencias tecnológicas
Electrónica
Technology
Electronics
Description
Summary:Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (ΦOTDR) is a simple and effective tool that allows the distributed monitoring of vibrations along single-mode fibers. In this letter we study the effects of modulation instability (MI) in long-range ΦOTDR over conventional optical fibers. We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that MI can induce a position-dependent signal fading which leads to a nearly complete visibility loss in the interference signal recorded at certain positions and therefore to a sensitivity loss at these positions. While this effect is detrimental in the context of distributed vibration analysis using ΦOTDR, we also believe that the technique provides a clear and insightful way to evidence the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) recurrence associated to the MI process.