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Journal of Lightwave Technology

Long-Distance High-Precision and High-Sensitivity Time Delay Variation Sensing Based on Fiber-Optic Weak Measurements

Wei-Qian Zhao, Zu-En Su, Ya‐Fei Yu, Jindong Wang

Published Apr 29, 2025• 3 citations
Publisher

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 time 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.

DOI
10.1109/jlt.2025.3565356

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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 time 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.
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.
Optical time delays play a pivotal role in modern physics and practical applications. We propose and experimentally validate a weak measurement system with a double-edge filter, which enables the real-time, high-precision estimation of varying time delays, and the effective suppression of technical noise. In the experiment, the postselected probe light is processed by the double-edge filter, which is formed by a pair of fiber Bragg gratings positioned symmetrically about the center frequency of the probe light, and subsequently detected by photodetectors. The experimental results demonstrate a time-delay precision of 1.66 attoseconds (as) and real-time estimation capability. With a postselection angle of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{rad}$ and the system operating within the most sensitive linear dynamic range, the precision can be further improved to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ as. The approach benefits from its high sensitivity and rapid detection, which shows great potential applications in real-time and high-precision time-delay measurements.
Weak measurement enables the amplification of weak physical effects via post-selection and has become an important tool in precision optical metrology; however, conventional schemes based on mean-pointer shifts suffer from response saturation, limited linear range, and stringent stability requirements. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a weak-measurement scheme based on spectral-interference trough shifts, where the zero-intensity points of the post-selected spectrum act as the measurement pointer, establishing an analytical mapping between the trough displacement and the target phase or time delay. Theoretical analysis shows that, under detector resolution limits, the measurement resolution depends solely on the frequency of extinction point and is independent of weak-value singular amplification or bias-phase modulation, thereby maintaining high sensitivity while avoiding pointer saturation. Experiments demonstrate that the trough-shift scheme achieves significantly better agreement between measured and theoretical sensitivities than biased weak measurement and provides a stable linear response without additional bias-compensation structures, reaching a minimum resolvable phase variation at the 10−7 level. Moreover, the approach intrinsically supports multi-period traceable measurements and exhibits strong robustness against intensity fluctuations and spectral distortions, offering a promising route toward high-sensitivity, large-dynamic-range, and stable weak measurement-based optical sensing.
Abstract Reliable detection of weak phase signals under significant channel loss and complex noise environments is a crucial step for practical applications of optical integrated communication and sensing systems. In this letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an enhanced long-distance weak signal transmission method assisted by weak measurement. Performing heterodyne detection and light intensity compensation on two nearly symmetric post-selected paths, the method enables real-time estimation of a time-varying phase while maintaining robustness against technical noises proportional to light intensity or photon number, detector common-mode noise, and significant attenuation over long-distance transmission. Experimental results indicate a potential phase sensitivity at the level of 10 −8 rad even with a signal light intensity attenuation of 48.1 dB. Potentially, combining the adaptive adjustment strategy, the method may provide a viable solution in remote weak signal detection and extraction, thereby contributing to optical integrated communication and sensing.
An enhanced distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is proposed based on an extended Mach-Zehnder interferometer utilizing quantum weak measurement. The acoustic signals are encoded as the relative phase of the polarized light in several channels by fibers between optical fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). With appropriate preselection and postselection, the acoustic signal can be extracted by performing the Fourier transform on the contrast ratio of the detected light intensity. Theoretical analysis shows that the scheme can achieve a spatial resolution of 1 m, and the system noise can be decreased by three orders of magnitude compared to classical distributed acoustic sensing. Moreover, this scheme might have potential application in long-distance acoustic source localization.
We experimentally demonstrate an ultra-sensitive technique for measuring sub-nanometer optical path differences (OPDs) using the biased weak measurement (BWM) protocol. By employing real weak values with a classical coherent light source and introducing a bias phase procedure, this method directly amplifies small OPDs in interferometry, achieving significantly enhanced amplification compared to conventional measurement (CM) and standard weak measurement (SWM). In a proof-of-principle experiment of sub-nanometer OPD measurement, BWM achieves nearly 4× signal improvement within the linear response range relative to SWM, and an 85× improvement over CM. The signal-to-noise ratio of BWM and SWM exhibits an order-of-magnitude enhancement on average compared to CM. Furthermore, we experimentally determine a minimum OPD resolution of 3.1×10-4nm, corresponding to a time delay of 1 ×10-3attoseconds and a phase shift of 3.0× 10-6rad. These results highlight the potential of weak measurement protocols for high-precision longitudinal phase estimation using narrow-band sources and common optical components.