Polarization and Probe Power Optimisation in Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis System

Brillouin optical time domain analysis (BOTDA) system is a very popular system for distributed optical sensing. In order to achieve its full performance quality, every system element and setting has to be carefully set. This paper specifically performs optimization analysis on the polarization and probe power in measurement of Brillouin gain spectrum and Brillouin frequency shift. The results reveal the necessity of adopting polarization scrambler into the system, and astutely choosing the correct pump power in order to reduce fluctuations in the Brillouin signals.