Experimental demonstration of a Brillouin optical frequency-domain reflectometry (BOFDR) sensor

To measure the strain and/or temperature along an optical fiber with one-end access, a Brillouin optical frequency-domain reflectometry (BOFDR) technique is presented in this paper. It is based on detecting the spontaneous Brillouin scattering from a sinusoidally modulated pump light. Compared to the Brillouin optical frequency-domain analysis (BOFDA), this new BOFDR sensor approach presents the advantage that the measurements are free from the distorting components related to acoustic wave modulation, thus simplifying the associated data processing.This work has been supported by the projects MIUR-PON03PE_00155_1-OPTOFER and MIUR-PON03PE_00171_1-GEOGRID of the Italian government, and by the project TEC2013-47264-C2-1-R and TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R of the Spanish government