Sub-THz-range linearly chirped signals characterized using linear optical sampling technique to enable sub-millimeter resolution for optical sensing applications.

Pulse compression technique is a particularly competitive method that enables both high spatial resolution and dynamic range in coherent radar and distributed fiber sensing systems. Up to now, the frequency bandwidths of most pulse compression techniques are restricted to tens of GHz. In this paper, we propose an all-optic sub-THz-range linearly chirped optical source and a large-bandwidth detection system to characterize it. Taking advantage of the chromatic dispersion effect, ultrashort optical pulses are stretched to be ~10 ns linearly chirped pulses with sub-THz range, which yields a large time-bandwidth product of 4500, a high compression ratio of 4167 and a chirp rate of 45 GHz/ns. The generated waveform is characterized with high precision thanks to the large detection bandwidth of linear optical sampling technique. A spatial resolution of 120 μm and an extinction ratio of 20.4 dB is demonstrated by using this technique, which paves the way for ultra-high spatial resolution and long range sensing applications such as LIDAR and optical reflectometry.