Strong Cancellation of RIN Transfer in a Raman-Assisted BOTDA Using Balanced Detection

Raman assistance is one of the most interesting routes toward extending the range of Brillouin optical timedomain analysis (BOTDA) systems. Unfortunately, the use of Raman amplification normally entails an important relative intensity noise (RIN) transfer toward the probe wave, which severely limits...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Domínguez López, Alejandro|||0000-0001-6065-6106, López Gil, Alexia Inés, Martín López, Sonia|||0000-0001-5203-6206, González Herráez, Miguel|||0000-0003-2555-2971
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/25138
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/25138
https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2014.2336699
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Distributed sensor
Optical fiber sensors
Raman scattering
Brillouin scattering
Balanced detection
Temperature sensor
Ciencias tecnológicas
Electrónica
Technology
Electronics
Descripción
Sumario:Raman assistance is one of the most interesting routes toward extending the range of Brillouin optical timedomain analysis (BOTDA) systems. Unfortunately, the use of Raman amplification normally entails an important relative intensity noise (RIN) transfer toward the probe wave, which severely limits this approach. In this letter, we show that the RIN transfer problem can be effectively avoided using a slightly modified scheme comprising a dual-sideband modulated probe and balanced detection. Our measurements clearly indicate a nearly complete cancellation of the RIN noise in the detected trace signal. The use of balanced detection in our Raman-assisted BOTDA setup implies a fivefold increase in figure of merit compared with the same setup using conventional detection.