Long-range distributed Brillouin fiber sensors by use of an unbalanced double sideband probe

We propose and demonstrate a long-range Brillouin Optical Time-Domain Analysis (BOTDA) distributed sensing system making use of an unbalanced double sideband probe formed by a Stokes and an anti-Stokes line. In particular, we show that for each measuring condition an optimal Stokes /anti-Stokes input power ratio exists, allowing a larger suppression of nonlocal effects induced by pump depletion. Experiments on a 50 km single-mode sensing fiber with 5 meters spatial resolution are reported. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America