Alternative implementation of simplified Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry

Abstract

We developed an alternative configuration of simplified Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry, which can overcome the drawbacks of the original configuration. This system uses, as reference light, the light that is Fresnel reflected at a partial reflection point artificially produced near an optical circulator. We show that the influence of the 0th correlation peak fixed at the partial reflection point can be suppressed by replacing the nearby fibers with other fibers having different Brillouin frequency shift values (here, multi-mode fibers are used). Finally, we demonstrate a distributed measurement for detecting a 1.46-m-long strained section with a high signal-to-noise ratio.