Abstract-The real remoteness of a distributed optical fiber sensor based on Brillouin optical time-domain analysis is considerably extended in this paper using seeded second-order Raman amplification and optical pulse coding. The presented analysis and the experimental results demonstrate that a proper optimization of both methods combined with a well-equalized two-sideband probe wave provide a suitable solution to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurements when an ultra-long sensing fiber is used. In particular, the implemented system is based on an extended optical fiber length, in which half of the fiber is used for sensing purposes, and the other half is used to carry the optical signals to the most distant sensing point, providing also a long fiber for distributed Raman amplification. Power levels of all signals launched into the fiber are properly optimized in order to avoid nonlinear effects, pump depletion, and especially any power imbalance between the two sidebands of the probe wave. This last issue turns out to be extremely important in ultra-long Brillouin sensing to provide strong robustness of the system against pump depletion. This way, by employing a 240 km-long optical fiber-loop, sensing from the interrogation unit up to a 120 km remote position (i.e., corresponding to the real sensing distance away from the sensor unit) is experimentally demonstrated with a spatial resolution of 5 m. Furthermore, this implementation requires no powered element in the whole 240 km fiber loop, providing considerable advantages in situations where the sensing cable crosses large unmanned areas.Index Terms-Brillouin scattering, distributed optic fiber sensor, distributed Raman amplification, optical pulse coding, strain and temperature measurements.

In this paper, we propose a novel Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA) set-up that combines simultaneous Brillouin gain/loss measurements with colour coding. This technique gives the advantage that the pump power can greatly be increased, compared to other coding schemes, thus increasing the sensing range. A first measurement over a 200 km fiber-loop is performed, with a 3 meter spatial resolution and an accuracy of  3 MHz (2) at the end of the sensing fiber. In a second set-up, high power flat pump pulses are generated by applying an arbitrary waveform signal on a frequency shifter, thus further increasing the performance of the novel Brillouin sensor. To the best of our knowledge, these are the best results obtained with a Brillouin sensor without Raman amplification.Index Terms-Brillouin scattering, fiber optics sensors, distributed fiber sensors, optical coding. 0733-8724 (c)

A photoacoustic sensor using a laser diode emitting near 1532 nm in combination with an erbium-doped fibre amplifier has been developed for ammonia trace gas analysis at atmospheric pressure. NH 3 concentration measurements down to 6 ppb and a noise-equivalent detection limit below 3 ppb in dry air are demonstrated. Two wavelength-modulation schemes with 1 f and 2 f detection using a lock-in amplifier were investigated and compared to maximise the signal-to-noise ratio. A quantitative analysis of CO 2 and H 2 O interference with NH 3 is presented. Typical concentrations present in ambient air of 400 ppm CO 2 and 1.15% H 2 O (50% relative humidity at 20 • C) result in a NH 3 equivalent concentration of 36 ppb and 100 ppb, respectively.PACS 42.62.Fi; 43.35.Ud; 42.55.Px

A novel scheme is proposed to extend the sensing range of Brillouin optical time-domain analyzers (BOTDA). Specially-designed erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) repeaters are located every 65km fiber along the sensing cable to achieve a total sensing length of 325km, corresponding to a 650km loop. At the end of the sensing fibre, we experimentally demonstrated a measurement repeatability of 2°C (2 ) using a three meters spatial resolution.

We demonstrate how a combination of polarisation-division multiplexing (PDM) and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) applied to graded index 50 mum multimode fibres (MMF) at 1.55 mum can be used to greatly increase the available optical bandwidth. A proof of principle experiment demonstrated error-free data transmission over 3km of MMF, using two 100GHz-spaced wavelengths, each carrying two 2.5Gb/s orthogonal PDM multiplexed channels, resulting in a 10Gb/s data rate. Polarisation and wavelength demultiplexing were simultaneously achieved by use of a grating based monochromator. We also practically implemented this transmission scheme in an all-fibre experiment, replacing the monochromator by a more convenient polarisation-insensitive, 200GHz ITU grid spacing 62.5 mum MMF pigtailed WDM demultiplexer. Using two polarizations each on four wavelengths (2P x 4lambda), we repeatedly achieved error-free data transmission for both circularly and linearly polarisation-wavelength-division-multiplexed channels over a MMF span of 300m, featuring a 20Gb/s data rate. Overall, we have demonstrated a major increase in the MMF bandwidth-distance product up to 30GHz-km.

A polarimetric Fabry-Perot fiber laser sensor for fluid pressure up to 100 MPa is investigated. The fluid acts on one of two elliptical-core fiber sections in the laser cavity, producing a shift in the differential phase of the two orthogonal polarization modes and thus a variation in the beat frequencies of the corresponding longitudinal laser modes. The second fiber section, with a 90 degrees offset in the core orientation, compensates for temperature-induced phase shifts. The dispersion in the birefringent fiber Bragg grating reflectors is employed to remove the near degeneracy of the polarization mode beat frequencies of a given order and to improve substantially the resolution of the sensor to a few parts in 10(6) of the free spectral range. Further investigations address the effect of the fluid on the integrity of the fiber, the influence of various fiber coatings on the sensor response, and the intrinsic stability of erbium-doped and undoped sensing fibers under fluid pressure.

In this paper we combine the use of optical pulse coding and seeded second-order Raman amplification to extend the sensing distance of Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors. Using 255-bit Simplex coding, the power levels of the Raman pumps and the Brillouin pump and probe signals were adjusted in order to extend the real physical sensing distance of a BOTDA sensor up to 120 km away from the sensor interrogation unit, employing a 240-km long loop of standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) with no repeater. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that distributed measurements are carried out over such a long distance with no active device inserted into the entire sensing loop, constituting a considerable breakthrough in the field.

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