Field Portable, Low Cost, Fiber-Optic Reflectometer Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Topic No.: N05-021 Topic Title: Field Portable, Low Cost, Fiber-Optic Reflectometer Proposal No.: N051-021-1736 Firm: Freedom Photonics LLC 65 Willow Springs Lane Suite 204 Goleta, California 93117 Contact: Jonathon Barton Phone: (805) 680-2176 Web Site: www.freedomphotonics.com Abstract: We propose to study the feasibility of a highly portable, inexpensive, photonic integrated circuit(PIC) based reflectometer that uses PICs packaged with ruggedized telecom techniques. The proposed reflectometer will be designed around a photonic engine module that contains 2 integrated widely-tunable lasers/transmitters on a single chip, based on the Sampled-Grating DBR laser, and additional reflectometer functions realized on another PIC chip. Both chips will be in the same module, separated by an optical isolator. Particular advantage of the proposed solution is its versatility, allowing different measurement techniques to be implemented with the same hardware. 2 tunable transmitters and the unique reflectometer PIC design allow for direct detection and coherent OTDR approaches to be implemented, as well as different frequency-modulated continuous wave techniques (CFMCW). We believe that these CFMCW techniques could provide a better overall solution to the problem with higher sensitivity and dynamic range. Comparison of the OTDR/CFMCW approaches will be performed in the Phase I of the project. Finally, the solution proposed will be compatible with the fiber optic transceiver built-in-test strategies. The tunable lasers to be part of the reflectometer photonic module could contain optical modulators and would be fully capable of high performance data transmission. Benefits: With the continuing deployment of optical networks in commercial and defense application, fiber optic reflectometers have become indispensable transmission link characterization tools. These instruments are most commonly used to characterize the link return losses and to locate any fiber breaks or damage. The instrument developed by Freedom Photonics LLC. would be the first affordable, high precision and high sensitivity reflectometer on the market. Beside aerospace and field testing applications the instrument would be of great interest for testing of optical component assemblies, local and storage area networks. In particular, since the instrument proposed is based on a widely tunable WDM transmitter, it is anticipated that it could be deployed as part of the built-in test in every node of the optical network. As such, the market potential of this instrument would be tremendous. Return