Long-distance high-precision and high-sensitivity time delay sensing based on fiber optic weak measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a weak measurement-based fiber optic delay sensing method that achieves attosecond-level precision and high sensitivity over long distances, improving robustness against fiber misalignments.

Contribution

It presents a novel weak measurement scheme using intensity contrast ratio for high-precision, high-sensitivity delay estimation in fiber optics with large inherent delays.

Findings

Achieves attosecond-level delay detection.

Maintains high sensitivity over long distances.

Robust against fiber misalignment errors.

Abstract

In fiber optic sensing, time delays induced by polarization mode dispersion can distort signals in systems relying on phase or intensity variations for measurement, degrading performance, especially in long distance, high-precision applications. To address this challenge, we propose a weak measurement-based scheme using intensity contrast ratio for high-precision, high-sensitivity fiber optic delay estimation under large inherent time delays. We demonstrate that a narrower light source bandwidth enhances the effective sensing distance for high-sensitivity measurements. Our results show that, even with large inherent time delays, the measurement precision and sensitivity remain comparable to those of biased weak measurement, enabling detection of time delay variations at the attosecond level, corresponding to a 25.5 Pa water pressure change. The scheme is also robust against fiber misalignment errors, offering a novel solution for long-distance distributed fiber-optic sensing and broadening the applications of weak measurement techniques.