Rayleigh Backscattering Analysis in POFs for High Spatial Resolution Distributed Sensing

This letter presents the Rayleigh backscattering analysis in perfluorinated polymer optical fibers (POFs). In this case, the optical backscattering reflectometry is used on the analysis of the scattering optical signals in the time and frequency domains considering both s- and p-polarizations. The results show the two-way optical attenuation of 17.46±9.50 dB/m along the fiber length, (of around 0.5 m). Considering the frequency domain analysis, a 4.3% variation on the two-way optical attenuation was obtained, whereas an 8.1% variation is obtained when the s- and p-polarization are analyzed. Then, the perfluorinated POF is applied as a millimeter-scale resolution force sensor, where the optical attenuation and spectral shift are analyzed as a function of the force applied along the POF. The sensor application results indicated the feasibility of using both attenuation and spectral shift on the measurement of force along the optical fiber cable. Therefore, the proposed approach is a suitable method for high resolution sensing.