Phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry with pulse mode EDFA: Probe pulse preparation

Probe pulse preparation techniques play an important role for fiber-optic sensing. In this work, we investigate a setup for distributed sensors based on phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) with the use of an erbium doped fibre amplifier (EDFA). In our Φ-OTDR setup with pulse mode EDFA, we reveal a regime providing us both sufficiently large amplification of the probe pulse power together and adequately small probe pulse distortion. We then show that the use of pulse mode EDFA is a cost-effective solution, which allows one to avoid nonlinear effect and ensure sufficient sensitivity of the setup.