We describe FMCW reflectometry for characterization of long optical fibers by using an external-cavity laser diode as a light source. Since the optical path difference between the reference beam and the reflected beam from the optical fiber under test is much longer than the coherence length of the light source, the reference and the reflected beams are phase-decorrelated. As a result, the beat spectrum between the reference and the reflected beams is measured. In the phase-decorrelated FMCW reflectomety, the spatial resolution is enhanced by narrowing the spectral linewidth of the light source and increasing the repetition frequency of the optical frequency sweep as well as increasing the chirping range of the optical frequency sweep. In the experiments, an external-cavity DFB laser is used as a narrow linewidth light source, and the optical frequency is swept by minute modulation of the external cavity length. Long single mode optical fibers are characterized, and the maximum measurement range of 80 km is achieved, and the spatial resolutions of 46 m, 100 m and 2 km are achieved at 5 km, 11 km and 80 km distant, respectively. The Rayleigh backscattering is clearly measured and the propagation loss of optical fiber is also measured. The optical gain of an erbium-doped optical fiber amplifier (EDFA) is also estimated from the change in the Rayleigh backscattering level in the optical fiber followed after the EDFA.

One-dimentional equivalent circuit model of a heterostructure InAlAs/InGaAs/InP metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector is discussed. In this photodetector, InGaAs is used as an optical absorption layer and the InAlAs is used for Schottky barrier enhanement. The measured S11 parameter deviates from equi-resistance lines on the Smith chart, indicating the equivalent circuit is different from the conventional equivalent circuit using a series resistance, a depletion region capacitance and a depletion region resistance. The difference is due to band discontinuity at the heterojunctions, and we propose a equivalent circuit taking account of the band discontinuity. The band discontinuity is expressed by parallel combination of a resistance and a capacitance. The measured S11 parameter can be fitted well with the calculated S11 parameter from the proposed equivalent circuit, and we can successfully extract the device parameters from the fitted curve.

A lasing charactrization of a Brillouin/erbium optical fiber laser (BEFL) is experimentally discussed. In the BEFL, an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is incorporated into the Brillouin laser resonator to enhance small Brillouin gain, which makes the configuration of the Brillouin laser resonator easy and flexible. The experimental results show that the output power of the BEFL has a threshold against the Brillouin pump power, and above the Brillouin threshold, the output power increases linearly with the EDFA pump power. The BEFL threshold decreases with increasing the length of the optical fiber in the laser resonator used as a Brillouin gain medium. The BEFL oscillates in a stable single longitudinal mode because the bandwidth of the Brillouin gain profile is very narrow ( 30 MHz). The relative intensity noise (RIN) and the spectral lineshape were measured. The noise floor level decreases with increasing the EDFA pump power, and the full-width at half maximum of the BEFL was measured to be about 8 kHz.

High-resolution FMCW reflectometry is often realized by sampling the beat signal with a clock signal generated from an auxiliary interferometer. The drawback of this system is that the measurement range is limited to less than half of the optical path difference of the auxiliary interferometer to satisfy the Sampling theorem. We propose and demonstrate a method to extend the measurement range of the system. The clock signal gerenerated from the auxiliary interferometer is electronically frequency-multipled by using a PLL circuit. The measurement range is experimentally extended by a factor of 20 while keeping high spatial resolution, and is theoretically extended by a factor of 128. The advantage of the proposed system is that the optical path difference of the auxiliary interferometer can be kept short, which is very effective for obtaining the stable and low time-jitter clock signal.