Tel Aviv University

Avi Motil

Moshe Tur

Yair Peled

Ido Sovran

Or Danon

A method and a system for ultimately fast frequency-scanning Brillouin optical time domain analysis are provided herein. The method may include: simultaneously launching two pairs each having a pulsed pump wave and a counter-propagating constant wave (CW) probe wave, into an optical fiber, wherein the pulsed pumps have orthogonal States of Polarization (SOPs), and wherein the two CW probe waves have a same SOP; scanning common pump-probe frequency difference, over a frequency range that encompasses a respective Brillouin Gain Spectrum (BGS) and current and expected spectral shifts of the BGS along the optical fiber; deriving, a local Brillouin Frequency Shift (BFS), in a distributed manner along the optical fiber, which is defined as the pump-probe frequency difference which maximizes the Brillouin gain on the BGS; and determining strain and/or temperature in a distributed manner along the optical fiber, based on the respective local BFS.

Method and system for an ultimately fast frequency-scanning brillouin optical time domain analyzer

A method of stimulated Brillouin scattering is proposed in which both slopes of the BGS spectrum are probed to achieve immunity to pump power variations. Suitably applied, the technique can maintain all the benefits of the known Slope-Assisted-BOTDA technique, while using the same setup but at the cost of halving the sampling speed. the method may include: obtaining a reference Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) representative of steady state or average conditions in various locations of the optical fiber along its length; generating, based on the reference BGS, a probe wave being a complex waveform comprising a first and second set of waveforms, each set having waveforms tailored to match an opposite slope of the reference BGS, at the various locations; performing stimulated Brillouin scattering at the various locations by applying a pump pulse wave to the probe wave; and deducing the local Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) at the various locations.

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Azor, Israel

Avi Motil