Determination of thermal residual strain in cabled optical fiber with high spatial resolution by Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry

The thermal residual strain induced in the cabled optical fiber is a very important factor for evaluating the reliability of optical fiber cables. In order to determine the distributed thermal residual strain in cabled optical fiber, a measurement method based on Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) system is proposed in the article. Thermal characteristics of residual strain along cabled optical fibers are investigated theoretically and experimentally based on Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) detection. The thermal residual strain along the cabled fiber, if any, can be determined with a high spatial resolution that is equal to that of the BOTDR system and can be less than a few meters. A double-coated fiber in loose optical cable was used as the test cabled optical fiber, and the experimental results were in good agreement with those predicted from the theory. It has been found that the fiber residual strain increases linearly with decreasing temperature in the range from 50 to ?50 °C.     

Spatial Resolution Enhancement in BOTDR by Spectrum Separation Method

BOTDR (Brillouin optical-fiber time domain reflectometry) is a promising technique for measuring the strain distribution along an optical fiber which can be used for diagnosing civil structures. However, there is a trade-off between the spatial and the frequency resolutions, and its practical spatial resolution is limited to about 1 m; to date the application scope has been restricted. In order to enhance the spatial resolution without decreasing the measurement accuracy, we intentionally introduce two kinds of strain within the spatial resolution length determined by the optical pulse width, which results in Brillouin gain spectrum separation. In this paper, we describe the theoretical analysis of the spectrum separation method together with experimental verification, where a spatial resolution of 0.5 m is demonstrated. We further propose a new parabolic data fitting method especially effective in the spectrum separation method.     

提高布里渊光时域反射应变仪测量空间分辨力的等效脉冲光拟合法

由于探测光脉冲宽度受到限制,布里渊光时域反射仪(BOTDR)在对光纤上的应变进行分布式测量时,空间分辨力只能达到1 m。针对布里渊光时域反射仪单次采样接收背向布里渊散射信号(BBS)需要一定的时间,提出了基于等效脉冲光的多洛仑兹拟合法以提高其应变测量的空间分辨力。该方法将探测光脉冲在布里渊光时域反射仪完成单次采样所需的时间上进行积分,将积分函数作为等效脉冲光的表达式,再根据等效脉冲光的形状将布里渊光时域反射仪接收到的背向布里渊散射谱(BBS)细分,并对它进行多洛仑兹迭代拟合,准确求得每个细分布里渊散射谱的中心频率,进而利用光纤中布里渊频移与应变的对应关系,得到光纤中与细分布里渊散射谱对应的细分光纤单元上的应变情况。实验结果表明,利用这种方法,可使布里渊光时域反射仪应变测量的空间分辨力提高至0.05 m。     

应变梯度对布里渊光时域反射计测量精度的影响

基于脉冲抽运的布里渊光时域反射计技术具有米数量级的空间分辩力。为了分析在其空间分辨力范围内的应变梯度增加对布里渊谱测量的影响,建立了后向布里渊散射谱与应变梯度的函数关系。数值分析结果表明应变梯度增大,不仅使布里渊频移随之线性增大,也会使后向布里渊散射谱峰值非线性降低,谱峰变得平坦。空间分辨力10m的100με／m应变梯度相对于零应变梯度,引起的布里渊频移测量误差增加2．04倍。传感光纤固定于悬臂梁上以模拟不同应变梯度,采用对频宽小于1MHz的激光脉冲调制和基于相干平衡检测的布里渊光时域反射计系统,实验测得了沿传感光纤的后向布里渊散射谱数据和应变分布。布里渊谱数据经最小二乘法拟合后,得到的不同应亦梯度的谱曲线变化与理论分析相吻合。     

Distributed Brillouin fiber sensing based on spectrum line fitting and wavelet packet denoising

A novel signal processing method is proposed to improve the spatial resolution, frequency resolution and dynamic characteristics of BOTDR. For the BOTDR system with 50 ns pump pulse, by using spectrum line fitting technology based on Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm, the spatial resolution is improved from 5 m to 5 cm. Combination of LM fitting algorithm, a large frequency scanning interval is adopted without sacrificing measurement accuracy of the BOTDR system. It reduces the number of sampling points of Brillouin spectrum significantly. So, the fitting speed is improved greatly. This is the first time using a large scan interval to increase the spectrum line fitting speed. To improve the fitting speed, the difference between the reference and measured spectrum is used to estimate the variation of Brillouin frequency shift. The measured amplitude of Brillouin spectrum is used to estimate the width of region strain occurred. Finally, by using wavelet packet denoising technology, the spectra containing noise are fitted successfully.     

Performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer with erbium doped fiber amplifier

The performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) affected by different pump power and direction of erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is experimentally demonstrated. A temperature error of 0.5 °C and spatial resolution of 10 m is obtained over 80 km sensing fiber with EDFA. The temperature resolution and dynamic range of BOTDR with backward pumped EDFA is better than forward pumped EDFA. Within the range of pump power, the resolution of BOTDR can be improved by increasing pump power.     

All fiber passively mode locked zirconium-based erbium-doped fiber laser

All passively mode locked erbium-doped fiber laser with a zirconium host is demonstrated. The fiber laser utilizes the Non-Linear Polarization Rotation (NPR) technique with an inexpensive fiber-based Polarization Beam Splitter (PBS) as the mode-locking element. A 2 m crystalline Zirconia–Yttria–Alumino-silicate fiber doped with erbium ions (Zr–Y–Al-EDF) acts as the gain medium and generates an Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) spectrum from 1500 nm to 1650 nm. The generated mode-locked pulses have a spectrum ranging from 1548 nm to more than 1605 nm, as well as a 3-dB bandwidth of 12 nm. The mode-locked pulse train has an average output power level of 17 mW with a calculated peak power of 1.24 kW and energy per pulse of approximately 730 pJ. The spectrum also exhibits a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of 50 dB as well as a repetition rate of 23.2 MHz. The system is very stable and shows little power fluctuation, in addition to being repeatable.     

Stimulated Brillouin scattering generation in ns pulsed double-cladding fiber amplifier

This paper proposes a study both in theory and experiment on the phenomenon of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a double-cladding fiber amplifier. The distortion characteristic of the 200-ns is observed through a stationary coupled-wave SBS model including the second-order Stokes wave for double-cladding fiber amplifier. The first-order Stokes wave is amplified during backward propagation to such an intense peak power that it can generate second-order Stokes wave. The stochastic aspect of pulse distortion induced by SBS is also experimentally demonstrated in the single frequency 200 ns pulse amplifier with 12-m Yb³⁺ doped double-cladding fiber. The backward SBS pulse is observed when the pulse peak power is up to 3.3 W, and the pulse width of SBS is narrower than that of the input signal. In the meantime, to overcome the difficulty of the pulse spectrum measurement, a novel method is put forward to measure the SBS frequency shift using the F–P interferometer with free spectral rang of 30 G, showing a good agreement with the theoretical estimation. SBS is the main factor that limits the output pulse peak power in the amplification of the single-frequency pulse.     

Fiber-based chromatic confocal microscope with Gaussian fitting method

The chromatic confocal microscopy is an effective method for displacement measurement. However, with relatively low detection efficiency, chromatic confocal systems from previous studies suffer from either a limited measuring range or an unsatisfying resolution. In this paper, a novel chromatic confocal system is proposed based on optical fiber with large diameter that is specifically chosen to allow more light to be detected, thus greatly improving the detection efficiency of the system. To accurately locate the peak wavelength of the recorded spectrum, four data processing methods are proposed and compared, within which the Gaussian fitting model is considered best for the system. A series of experiments are done to verify the feasibility, resolution and stability of the system. An applicable measuring range of 600 μm is discovered with a highly linear range of 400 μm. The system has a high resolution close to 0.10 μm with satisfying stability shown by a long-term displacement standard deviation of 0.16 μm.     

一个新型的基于全光纤Mach-Zehnder干涉仪BOTDR系统

报道了新型的分布式传感测量布里渊光时域反射(BOTDR)系统.布里渊散射频移和强度均依赖于温度和应变,因此,BOTDR利用光纤中的自发布里渊散射作为测量信号可以实现分布式温度和应变测量.在BOTDR中,光源采用窄谱半导体激光器,并由声光调制器调制成脉冲光,经掺铒光纤放大器放大后,注入测试光纤以产生自发布里渊散射.利用双通Mach-Zehnder干涉仪分离光纤背向散射中的自发布里渊散射与瑞利散射信号,实现了自发布里渊散射的直接检测.实验结果表明基于全光纤Mach-Zehnder干涉仪BOTDR方案是可行的.     

Wavelength tunable,high energy femtosecond laser pulses directly generated from large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber

Wavelength tunable high energy ultrashort laser pulses are generated from a large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber in anomalous dispersion (AD) regime. A simplified laser cavity design with one fine polished facet of the fiber as a cavity mirror is used. The intra-cavity dispersion compensation is achieved by a grating pair, the spatial dispersed light from which also have optical spectrum filtering effects combined with the limited aperture of the fiber core. The laser system is able to generate ultrashort pulses ranging from 494 fs (with 56 nJ pulse energy) to 1.24 ps (with 49 nJ pulse energy) at 55 MHz repetition rate. The filtering mechanism benefits the generation of high energy pulses with narrowing pulse duration in AD regime. An undulation in frequency and time domain is also observed with the increase of the pump power. Furthermore, this laser system is directly used as seed for supercontinuum generation.     

Optical single sideband-frequency generation with carrier totally suppressed for Brillouin distributed fiber sensing

The power fluctuation and multi-sidebands of the RF modulated electro-optic intensity modulator (EOIM) can lead to a degraded resolution of the Brillouin distributed sensors. A standard commercial fiber-pigtailed DFB-LD is locked to one of the sidebands of the EOIM. Optical single sideband-frequency generation is realized with the carrier and the other sidebands totally suppressed. The locked LD greatly improves the power stability of the injected sideband. No dc bias controlling to the EOIM is needed in the locking process. This simple method provides large tuning range (～1 GHz), fast response (～100 μs), and high side-frequency suppression ratio (～60 dB). Thus, it is practical for high-resolution Brillouin sensing systems as well as microwave photonics.     

Temperature and strain discrimination using two parallel connected Sagnac loops based on character-1 shaped polarization-maintaining fiber

A fiber sensor configuration suitable for discrimination of temperature and strain is presented. The sensor head is composed of two parallel concatenated Sagnac loops based on character-1 shaped polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF). The two Sagnac loops include different sections of character-1 shaped PMFs, and show different sensitivity to temperature and strain. By monitoring the wavelength shift of the two dips in the transmission spectrum, simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain is obtained. The sensitivity for strain and temperature are measured to be 14.46 pm and ? 0.54 nm.     

Measuring derived acoustic power of an ultrasound surgical device in the linear and nonlinear operating modes

Objective and motivationThe method for measuring derived acoustic power of an ultrasound point source in the form of a sonotrode tip has been considered in the free acoustic field, according to the IEC 61847 standard. The main objective of this work is measuring averaged pressure magnitude spatial distribution of an sonotrode tip in the free acoustic field conditions at different electrical excitation levels and calculation of the derived acoustic power at excitation frequency (f₀ ≈ 25 kHz). Finding the derived acoustic power of an ultrasonic surgical device in the strong cavitation regime of working, even in the considered laboratory conditions (anechoic pool), will enable better understanding of the biological effects on the tissue produced during operation with the considered device.Experimental methodThe pressure magnitude spatial distribution is measured using B&;K 8103 hydrophone connected with a B&;K 2626 conditioning amplifier, digital storage oscilloscope LeCroy Waverunner 474, where pressure waveforms in the field points are recorded. Using MATLAB with DSP processing toolbox, averaged power spectrum density of recorded pressure signals in different field positions is calculated. The measured pressure magnitude spatial distributions are fitted with the appropriate theoretical models.Theoretical approachesIn the linear operating mode, using the acoustic reciprocity principle, the sonotrode tip is theoretically described as radially oscillating sphere (ROS) and transversely oscillating sphere (TOS) in the vicinity of pressure release boundary. The measured pressure magnitude spatial distribution is fitted with theoretical curves, describing the pressure field of the considered theoretical models. The velocity and displacement magnitudes with derived acoustic power of equivalent theoretical sources are found, and the electroacoustic efficiency factor is calculated. When the transmitter is excited at higher electrical power levels, the displacement magnitude of sonotrode tip is increased, and nonlinear behaviour in loading medium appears, with strong cavitation activity produced hydrodynamically. The presence of harmonics, subharmonics and ultraharmonics as a consequence of stable cavitation is evident in the averaged power spectral density. The cavitation noise with continuous frequency components is present as a consequence of transient cavitation. The averaged pressure magnitude at the frequency components of interest (discrete and continous) in the field points is found by calculating average power spectral density of the recorded pressure waveform signal using the welch method. The frequency band of interest where average power spectral density is calculated is in the range from 15 Hz up to 120 kHz due to measurement system restrictions. The novelty in the approach is the application of the acoustic reciprocity principle on the nonlinear system (sonotrode tip and bubble cloud) to find neccessary acoustic power of the equivalent acoustic source to produce the measured pressure magnitude in the field points at the frequency components of interest.ResultsIn the nonlinear operating mode, the ROS model for the considered sonotrode tip is chosen due to the better agreement between measurement results and theoretical considerations. At higher excitation levels, it is shown that the averaged pressure magnitude spatial distribution of discrete frequency components, produced due to stable cavitation, can be fitted in the far field with the inverse distance law. The reduced electroacoustic efficiency factor, calculated at excitation frequency component as ratio of derived acoustic power with applied electrical power, is reduced from 40% in the linear to 3% in the strong nonlinear operating mode. The derived acoustic power at other frequency components (subharmonic, harmonic and ultraharmonic) is negligible in comparison with the derived acoustic power at excitation frequency.Discussion and conclusionsThe sonotrode tip and loading medium are shown in the strong cavitation regime as the coupled nonlinear dynamical system radiating acoustic power at frequency components appearing in the spectrum. The bubble cloud in the strong nonlinear operating mode decreases the derived acoustic power significantly at the excitation frequency.     

Experimental study of SBS suppression and coherence property of 1064 nm high power multi-tone fiber amplifier

Seeding high power fiber amplifier employing multi-tone fiber laser is an effective approach to suppress stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). In this paper, a two-stage 1064 nm high power fiber amplification system was set up. Single-, two- and three-tone fiber lasers were employed. SBS threshold powers and maximum output powers of the multi-tone cases are enhanced compared with the single-tone case. The multi-tone amplifiers also show comparable optical-to-optical efficiency to the single-tone amplifier. To demonstrate and validate coherence property of the two multi-tone fiber amplifiers, the output laser beams of the amplifiers were self-interfered in our self-made coherent beam combining system. The laser beams of the multi-tone cases showed good coherence property comparable to the single-tone case, which implied that the high power output laser light of the multi-tone fiber amplifiers could be used for coherent beam combining.     

Practical aspects of strain measurement in thin SiGe layers by (0 0 4) dark-field electron holography in Lorentz mode

Dark-field electron holography (DFEH) is a powerful transmission electron microscopy technique for mapping strain with nanometer resolution and high precision. However the technique can be difficult to set up if some practical steps are not respected. In this article, several measurements were performed on thin Si_(1−x)Ge_x layers using (0 0 4) DFEH in Lorentz mode. Different practical aspects are discussed such as sample preparation, reconstruction of the holograms and interpretation of the strain maps in terms of sensitivity and accuracy. It was shown that the measurements are not significantly dependent on the preparation tool. Good results can be obtained using both FIB and mechanical polishing. Usually the most important aspect is a precise control of the thickness of the sample. A problem when reconstructing (0 0 4) dark-field holograms is the relatively high phase gradient that characterises the strained regions. It can be difficult to perform reconstructions with high sensitivity in both strained and unstrained regions. Here we introduce simple methods to minimise the noise in the different regions using a specific mask shape in Fourier space or by combining several reconstructions. As a test, DFEH was applied to the characterization of eight Si_(1−x)Ge_x samples with different Ge concentrations. The sensitivity of the strain measured in the layers varies between 0.08% and 0.03% for spatial resolutions of 3.5–7 nm. The results were also compared to finite element mechanical simulations. A good accuracy of ±0.1% between experiment and simulation was obtained for strains up to 1.5% and ±0.25% for strains up to 2.5%.     

Distributed fiber sensing system with wide frequency response and accurate location

A distributed fiber sensing system merging Mach–Zehnder interferometer and phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer (Φ-OTDR) is demonstrated for vibration measurement, which requires wide frequency response and accurate location. Two narrow line-width lasers with delicately different wavelengths are used to constitute the interferometer and reflectometer respectively. A narrow band Fiber Bragg Grating is responsible for separating the two wavelengths. In addition, heterodyne detection is applied to maintain the signal to noise rate of the locating signal. Experiment results show that the novel system has a wide frequency from 1 Hz to 50 MHz, limited by the sample frequency of data acquisition card, and a spatial resolution of 20 m, according to 200 ns pulse width, along 2.5 km fiber link.     

Numerical analysis of a broadband spectrum generated in a standard fiber by noise-like pulses from a passively mode-locked fiber laser

This paper covers a numerical analysis of supercontinuum spectrum generation in a piece of standard fiber by using as the pump noise-like pulses produced by a passively mode-locked fiber laser. An experimental study was also carried out, yielding results that support the numerical results. In the numerical study we estimated that the spectral extension of the generated supercontinuum reaches ~ 1000 nm, and that it presents a high flatness over a region of ~ 220 nm (1630 nm-1850 nm) when we use as the pump noise-like pulses with a wide optical bandwidth (~ 50 nm) and a peak power of ~ 2 kW. Experimentally, the output signal spectrum extends from ~ 1530 nm to at least 1750 nm and presents a high flatness over a region of 1640 nm to 1750 nm for the same value of numerical input power, 1750 nm being the upper limit of the optical spectrum analyzer. The numerical analysis presented here is thus an essential part to overcome the severe limitation in measuring capabilities and to understand the phenomena of supercontinuum generation, which is mainly related to Raman self-frequency shift. Finally, this work demonstrates the potential of noise-like pulses from a passively mode-locked fiber laser for broadband spectrum generation.     

Fine structure of far infrared spectrum of ethanol in the lowest OH-torsional vibrational trans-state (e0) of ethanol

In this report the spectroscopic results for far infrared Fourier transform spectrum corresponding to the b-type transitions within the lowest lying trans-substrate (e₀) have been presented. The calculated matrix elements connecting various K-levels suggest that ΔK = 1 transitions within the trans- subs-state should be quite strong but the transitions between the trans state to the gauche states would quite week (practically non-existent). This was also concluded by previous studies using microwave and millimeter wave regions (Pearson et al., 1982; Millar, 1995). The assignments were confirmed by direct observations at the spectrum and the agreement between the observed and calculated spectrum using precise energy levels reported by Pearson et al. (1982). All the strong ^RR and some ^RQ branch lines starting from K = 10 ← 9 through K = 24 ← 23 have been identified. State dependent expansion parameters for all the 15 sub-bands have been presented. These parameters can reproduce the experimental wave numbers within experimental uncertainty. An atlas for about 450 transition lines corresponding to transitions within the e₀ torsional–vibrational species has been prepared. To our knowledge this is the first time the high resolution far infra-red spectral region study for ethanol have been performed.     

Research on the optical fiber gas flowmeters based on intermodal interference

In this work, a self-heating type optical fiber flowmeter with high sensitivity was proposed. The core-offset fiber structures were employed to couple a part of signal light into the fiber cladding layer, and the other part of light still propagated in the core layer. The intermodal interference between the two parts of light happened when the cladding modes were coupled back into core layer. Meanwhile, the high power laser was also introduced into fiber to heat the silver film coated on the surface of the cladding layer. When the cool gas flow passed, the temperature of the sensor probe decreased due to the heat transfer process. Because of the thermo-optic effect in the fiber, interference spectrum could be shifted when the temperature was changed. The experimental results showed the resolution of the proposed sensor was 2×10⁻² m/s in the region of 0–8 m/s. The highest sensitivity could achieve 1537 pm/(m/s).