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=Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry=



Optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) is a technique that injects laser light into an optical system and measures the light reflected. Typical applications include evaluation of fiber optic links, fiber optic components, or for sensing the environment with the aid of an optical transducer, for example a Fiber Bragg grating. The primary characteristic is the use of a widely tunable, continuous wave, coherent laser source that is tuned over a range of optical frequencies while the reflected optical signal is recorded. The data record is then processed to compute many parameters of interest, e.g. location and reflectivity of fiber breaks or the optical frequency response of a transducer.

Coherent OFDR
The use of the term optical frequency domain reflectometry in the literature refers to two distinct techniques. One uses an amplitude modulated incoherent source where the modulation frequency is tuned while the optical frequency remains fixed. The second, as described above, uses a coherent laser source where the optical frequency is tuned. It is the second technique we will discuss in this article.