Zinan Wang

Ultra-long high-sensitivity Φ-OTDR for high spatial resolution intrusion detection of pipelines

An ultra-long phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) that can achieve high-sensitivity intrusion detection over 131.5km fiber with high spatial resolution of 8m is presented, which is the longest Φ-OTDR reported to date, to the best of our knowledge. It is found that the combination of distributed Raman amplification with heterodyne detection can extend the sensing distance and enhances the sensitivity substantially, leading to the realization of ultra-long Φ-OTDR with high sensitivity and spatial resolution. Furthermore, the feasibility of applying such an ultra-long Φ-OTDR to pipeline security monitoring is demonstrated and the features of intrusion signal can be extracted with improved SNR by using the wavelet detrending/denoising method proposed.

Random-lasing-based distributed fiber-optic amplification

The gain and noise characteristics of distributed Raman amplification (DRA) based on random fiber laser (RFL) (including forward and backward random laser pumping) have been experimentally investigated through comparison with conventional bi-directional 1st-order and 2nd-order pumping. The results show that, the forward random laser pumping exhibits larger averaged gain and gain fluctuation while the backward random laser pumping has lower averaged gain and nonlinear impairment under the same signal input power and on-off gain. The effective noise figure (ENF) of the forward random laser pumping is lower than that of the bi-directional 1st-order pumping by ~2.3 dB, and lower than that of bi-directional 2nd-order pumping by ~1.3 dB at transparency transmission, respectively. The results also show that the spectra and power of RFL are uniquely insensitive to environmental temperature variation, unlike all the other lasers. Therefore, random-lasing-based distributed fiber-optic amplification could offer low-noise and stable DRA for long-distance transmission.

Third-order random lasing via Raman gain and Rayleigh feedback within a half-open cavity

Third-order random lasing operating in 1670 nm spectral band is experimentally demonstrated for the first time to the best of our knowledge, with only 2.45 W pump threshold. The lasing cavity is formed by G.652 fiber and fiber loop mirrors (FLMs), while the former acts as the distributed reflector and the latter acts as the point reflector. The G.652 fiber and the FLMs are connected via a multi-band wavelength-division-multiplexer, which ensures each of the three Raman Stokes components generated in the long fiber is routed to one FLM and then reflected back with minimum loss. Unlike existing half-open random lasing cavities using fiber Bragg gratings, the reflection bandwidth of FLMs is wide enough to preserve the intrinsic spectral features of each lasing bands, providing a valuable platform to study the mechanism of high-order random lasing in fibers. Also, the reflection efficiency can be treated as an invariant as the pump power grows, significantly reducing the threshold of high-order random lasing. The stationary model is used to calculate the output power, and the results fit the experimental data well.

Coherent Φ-OTDR based on I/Q demodulation and homodyne detection.

We demonstrate a novel distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) system based on phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR). Both the phase and the amplitude of the Rayleigh scattering (RS) light can be demodulated in real-time. The technique is based on I/Q demodulation and homodyne detection using a 90° optical hybrid. The theoretical analysis is given, and as a proof of the concept, the dynamic strain sensing is experimentally demonstrated, with a sensing range of 12.566 km and a spatial resolution of 10 m.

Hybrid distributed Raman amplification combining random fiber laser based 2nd-order and low-noise LD based 1st-order pumping

A configuration of hybrid distributed Raman amplification (H-DRA), that is formed by incorporating a random fiber laser (RFL) based 2nd-order pump and a low-noise laser-diode (LD) based 1st-order pump, is proposed in this paper. In comparison to conventional bi-directional 1st-order DRA, the effective noise figure (ENF) is found to be lower by amount of 0 to 4 dB due to the RFL-based 2nd-order pump, depending on the on-off gain, while the low-noise 1st-order Raman pump is used for compensating the worsened signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the vicinity towards the far end of the fiber and avoiding the potential nonlinear impact induced by excess injection of pump power and suppressing the pump-signal relative intensity noise (RIN) transfer. As a result, the gain distribution can be optimized along ultra-long fiber link, due to combination of the 2nd-order RFL and low-noise 1st-order pumping, making the transmission distance be extended significantly. We utilized such a configuration to achieve ultra-long-distance distributed sensing based on Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA). A repeater-less sensing distance record of up to 154.4 km with 5 m spatial resolution and ~ ± 1.4 °C temperature uncertainty is successfully demonstrated.

Graphene enhanced evanescent field in microfiber multimode interferometer for highly sensitive gas sensing

Graphene based new physics phenomena are leading to a variety of stimulating graphene-based photonic devices. In this study, the enhancement of surface evanescent field by graphene cylindrical cladding is observed, for the first time, by using a graphene-coated microfiber multi-mode interferometer (GMMI). It is found theoretically and experimentally that the light transmitting in the fiber core is efficiently dragged by the graphene, hence significantly enhancing the evanescent fields, and subsequently improving the sensitivity of the hybrid waveguide. The experimental results for gas sensing verified the theoretical prediction, and ultra-high sensitivities of ~0.1 ppm for NH(3) gas detection and ~0.2 ppm for H(2)O vapor detection are achieved, which could be used for trace analysis. The enhancement of surface evanescent field induced by graphene may pave a new way for developing novel graphene-based all-fiber devices with compactness, low cost, and temperature immunity.

Separation and Determination of the Disturbing Signals in Phase-Sensitive Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (Φ-OTDR)

Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) is easy to be interfered by ambient noises, and the nonlinear coherent addition of different interferences always makes it difficult to detect real human intrusions and causes high nuisance alarm rates (NARs) in practical applications. In this paper, an effective temporal signal separation and determination method is proposed to improve its detection performance in complicated noisy environments. Unlike the conventional analysis of transverse spatial signals, the time-evolving sensing signal of Φ-OTDR system is at first obtained for each spatial point by accumulating the changing OTDR traces at different moments. Then, its longitudinal temporal signal is decomposed and analyzed by a multi-scale wavelet decomposition method. By selectively recombining the corresponding scale components, it can effectively extract human intrusion signals, and separate the influences of slow change of the system and other environmental interferences. Compared with the conventional differentiation way and fast Fourier transformation denoising method, the SNRs of the detecting signals for the proposed method is always the best, which can be raised by up to ~35 dB for the best case. Moreover, from the decomposed components, different event signals can be effectively determined by their energy distribution features, and the NAR can be controlled to be less than 2% in the test.

Role of the mirror’s reflectivity in forward-pumped random fiber laser

In this paper, we thoroughly analyze the role of the point reflectors reflectivity in the performance of forward-pumped random fiber laser, in both the long- and short-cavity cases. The results show that the power performance is sensitive to the small reflection added on the pump side of the fiber end, whereas both the power distribution and threshold tend to be stable when the reflectivity reaches a relatively high level (>0.4). Moreover, for the short cavity case (e.g. 500m), the maximum achievable 1st-oder random lasing output can even increase when the reflectivity decreases from 0.9 to 0.01, due to the different lasing power distributions with different reflectivity values. This work reveals a new and unique property of random fiber lasers and provides insights into their design for the applications such as distributed amplification and high power sources.

Generation of cascaded four-wave-mixing with graphene-coated microfiber

A graphene-coated microfiber (GCM)-based hybrid waveguide structure formed by wrapping monolayer graphene around a microfiber with length of several millimeters is pumped by a nanosecond laser at ∼1550  nm, and multi-order cascaded four-wave-mixing (FWM) is effectively generated. By optimizing both the detuning and the pump power, such a GCM device with high nonlinearity and compact size would have potential for a wide range of FWM applications, such as phase-sensitive amplification, multi-wavelength filter, all-optical regeneration and frequency conversion, and so on.

Towards fully distributed amplification and high-performance long-range distributed sensing based on random fiber laser

The random distributed feedback fiber laser (RDFB-FL), firstly proposed and demonstrated by S. K. Turitsyn et al., has been designated as the significant breakthrough in the fields of laser physics and nonlinear optics. In this paper, the fully distributed Raman amplification approach, based on the novel concept of RDFB-FL, is proposed and presented for the first time. As a typical proof-of-concept, the high-performance distributed sensing with ±1°C temperature accuracy and ±2m spatial resolution, over entire 122km long-range Brillouin optical time-domain analyzer (BOTDA), has been demonstrated using the fully distributed second-order Raman amplification based on RDFB-FL proposed. The experimental results confirmed its unique ultra-low noise performance for the proposed distributed amplification. We believe its the best sensing result for such a length of BOTDA so far. The underlined physical mechanisms associated with its quasi-lossless transmission and partial coherence characteristics, are also presented, in order to account for this much attractive feature.