Overcoming non-local effects and Brillouin threshold limitations in Brillouin optical time domain sensors

Date

2015

Authors

Ruiz Lombera, Rubén
Mirapeix, Jesús
López Higuera, José Miguel

Director

Publisher

IEEE
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión aceptada / Onetsi den bertsioa

Project identifier

  • MINECO//TEC2013-47264-C2-2-R/ES/ recolecta
Impacto
No disponible en Scopus

Abstract

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, a Brillouin optical time domain analysis (BOTDA) sensor that is able to operate with a probe power larger than the Brillouin threshold of the deployed sensing fiber and that is free from detrimental non-local effects. The technique is based on a dual-probe-sideband setup in which an optical frequency modulation of the probe waves along the fiber is introduced. This makes the optical frequency of the Brillouin interactions induced by each probe wave on the pump to vary along the fiber so that two broadband Brillouin gain and loss spectra that perfectly compensate are created. As a consequence, the pulse spectral components remain undistorted avoiding non-local effects. Therefore, a very large probe power can be injected, which improves the signal-to-noise ratio in detection for long-range BOTDA. Moreover, the probe power can even exceed the Brillouin threshold limit due to their frequency modulation, which reduces the effective amplification of spontaneous Brillouin scattering in the fiber. Experiments demonstrate the technique in a 50-km sensing link in which 8 dBm of probe power is injected.

Description

Keywords

Brillouin distributed sensors, Brillouin optical time domain analysis, Non-local effects, Brillouin threshold, Optical fiber sensors, Stimulated Brillouin scattering

Department

Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica / Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa

Faculty/School

Degree

Doctorate program

item.page.cita

R. Ruiz-Lombera, J. Urricelqui, M. Sagues, J. Mirapeix, J. M. López-Higuera and A. Loayssa, "Overcoming Nonlocal Effects and Brillouin Threshold Limitations in Brillouin Optical Time-Domain Sensors," in IEEE Photonics Journal, vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 1-9, Dec. 2015. doi: 10.1109/JPHOT.2015.2498543

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