The analysis of chemical species is one of the most fundamental and long-standing challenges in fiber-optic sensors research. Existing sensor architectures require a spatial overlap between light and the substance being tested and rely either on structural modifications of standard fibers or on specialty photonic crystal fibers. In this work, we report an optomechanical fiber sensor that addresses liquids outside the cladding of standard, 8/125 μm single-mode fibers with no structural intervention. Measurements are based on forward stimulated Brillouin scattering by radial, guided acoustic modes of the fiber structure. The acoustic modes are stimulated by an optical pump pulse and probed by an optical signal wave, both confined to the core. The acoustic vibrations induce a nonreciprocal phase delay to the signal wave, which is monitored in a Sagnac interferometer loop configuration. The measured resonance frequencies and excitation strengths of individual modes agree with the predictions of a corresponding quantitative analysis. The acoustic reflectivity at the outer cladding boundary and the acoustic impedance of the surrounding medium are extracted from cavity lifetime measurements of multiple modes. The acoustic impedances of deionized water and ethanol are measured with better than 1% accuracy. The measurements successfully distinguish between aqueous solutions with 0, 4%, 8%, and 12% concentrations of dissolved salt. The new fiber-sensing paradigm might be used in the monitoring of industrial processes involving ionic solutions.

Optical sensing offers an attractive solution to the societal concern for prevention of natural and human-generated threats and for efficient use of natural resources. The unprecedented properties of optical fibers make them ideal for implementing a 'nervous system' in structural health monitoring: they are small, low-cost and electrically and chemically inert. In particular, the nonlinear interaction of stimulated Brillouin scattering allows for the distributed measurement of strain and temperature with tens of km range. In this work, a novel, radar-inspired technique for random-access Brillouin scattering-based sensors is shown, making a significant step towards a real optical sensing nerve. The method selectively addresses each fiber segment as a distinct sensing element in a synaptic neuronal system. The measurement principle relies on phase-coding of both the Brillouin pump and signal waves by a high-rate, pseudo-random bit sequence. Temperature measurements with 1 cm resolution are reported. The measurement range is scalable to several km. The precision localization of disturbances has been a mainstay of radar systems since WW-II. A widely employed radar technique relies on the transmission of long sequences of short pulses [1], and their subsequent processing by a pre-designed matched filter at the receiving end. The filtering procedure compresses the sequence of pulses to a temporally-narrow impulse response function, which provides high resolution together with a large signal to noise ratio [1]. Matched filters in radars are realized by correlating the received radar echoes against a replica of the transmitted sequence, which was stored as a reference. The correlation, in turn, is implemented either through ratio-frequency, electrical analogue mixing or via digital signal processing. Correlation coding has been introduced to Rayleigh scattering-based optical time-domain reflectometry, as early as 1989 [2]. In our work, we carry over the principle of match-filtering long pulse sequences to the realm of fiberoptic sensing [3][4][5][6][7], and use it for the unambiguous probing of a random locale. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is an ideally suited platform for such random-access sensing system: not only is it inherently dependent on both strain and temperature [8][9][10][11][12], it also allows for the realization of correlation-based matched filtering of pulse sequences directly in the optical domain, as will be described in detail. LETTER ARTICLE RandomIn stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), a relatively intense pump wave interacts with a counter-propagating signal wave, which is detuned in frequency [8]. The combination of the two waves generates an intensity beating pattern, whose frequency equals the difference Ω between the two optical frequencies. Through electrostriction, the intensity beat introduces an acoustic wave, which in turn leads to a traveling grating of refractive index variations, due to the photo-elastic effect. The traveling grating can couple optical power between ...

A novel technique for the localization of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) interaction is proposed, analyzed and demonstrated experimentally. The method relies on the phase modulation of two counterpropagating optical waves by a common pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS), these waves being spectrally detuned by the Brillouin frequency shift. The PRBS symbol duration is much shorter than the acoustic lifetime. The interference between the two modulated waves gives rise to an acoustic grating that is confined to narrow correlation peaks, as short as 1.7 cm. The separation between neighboring peaks, which is governed by the PRBS length, can be made arbitrarily long. The method is demonstrated in the generation and applications of dynamic gratings in polarization maintaining (PM) fibers. Localized and stationary acoustic gratings are induced by two phase modulated pumps that are polarized along one principal axis of the PM fiber, and interrogated by a third, readout wave which is polarized along the orthogonal axis. Using the proposed technique, we demonstrate the variable delay of 1 ns-long readout pulses by as much as 770 ns. Noise due to reflections from residual off-peak gratings and its implications on the potential variable delay of optical communication data are discussed. The method is equally applicable to the modulation of pump and probe waves in SBS over standard fibers. ©2012 Optical Society of America References and links1. R. W. Boyd, Nonlinear Optics, 3rd edition, (Academic Press, 2008). 2. T. Kurashima, T. Horiguchi, and M. Tateda, "Distributed-temperature sensing using stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical silica fibers," Opt. Lett. 15(18), 1038-1040 (1990). 3. T. Horiguchi, T. Kurashima, and M. Tateda, "A technique to measure distributed strain in optical fibers," IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 2(5), 352-354 (1990). 4. X. Bao, D. J. Webb, and D. A. Jackson, "22-km distributed temperature sensor using Brillouin gain in an optical fiber," Opt. Lett. 18(7), 552-554 (1993). 5. M. Niklès, L. Thévenaz, and P. A. Robert, "Simple distributed fiber sensor based on Brillouin gain spectrum analysis," Opt. Lett. 21(10), 758-760 (1996). 6. T. Horiguchi and M. Tateda, "Optical-fiber-attenuation investigation using stimulated Brillouin scattering between a pulse and a continuous wave," Opt. Lett. 14(8), 408-410 (1989). 7. A. Fellay, L. Thevenaz, M. Facchini, M. Nikles, and P. Robert, "Distributing sensing using stimulated Brillouin scattering: Toward ultimate resolution," in

A new scheme for distributed Brillouin sensing of strain and temperature in optical fibers is proposed, analyzed and demonstrated experimentally. The technique combines between time-domain and correlation-domain analysis. Both Brillouin pump and signal waves are repeatedly co-modulated by a relatively short, high-rate phase sequence, which introduces Brillouin interactions in a large number of discrete correlation peaks. In addition, the pump wave is also modulated by a single amplitude pulse, which leads to a temporal separation between the generation of different peaks. The Brillouin amplification of the signal wave at individual peak locations is resolved in the time domain. The technique provides the high spatial resolution and long range of unambiguous measurement offered by correlation-domain Brillouin analysis, together with reduced acquisition time through the simultaneous interrogation of a large number of resolution points. In addition, perfect Golomb codes are used in the phase modulation of the two waves instead of random sequences, in order to reduce noise due to residual, off-peak Brillouin interactions. The principle of the method is supported by extensive numerical simulations. Using the proposed scheme, the Brillouin gain spectrum is mapped experimentally along a 400 m-long fiber under test with a spatial resolution of 2 cm, or 20,000 resolution points, with only 127 scans per choice of frequency offset between pump and signal. Compared with corresponding phase-coded, Brillouin correlation domain analysis schemes with equal range and resolution, the acquisition time is reduced by a factor of over 150. A 5 cm-long hot spot, located towards the output end of the pump wave, is properly identified in the measurements. The method represents a significant advance towards practical high-resolution and long range Brillouin sensing systems.

A new technique for Brillouin scattering-based, distributed fiber-optic measurements of temperature and strain is proposed, analyzed, simulated, and demonstrated. Broadband Brillouin pump and signal waves are drawn from the filtered amplified spontaneous emission of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier, providing high spatial resolution. The reconstruction of the position-dependent Brillouin gain spectra along 5 cm of a silica single-mode fiber under test, with a spatial resolution of 4 mm, is experimentally demonstrated using a 25 GHz-wide amplified spontaneous emission source. A 4 mm-long localized hot spot is identified by the measurements. The uncertainty in the reconstruction of the local Brillouin frequency shift is ± 1.5 MHz. The single correlation peak between the pump and signal is scanned along a fiber under test using a mechanical variable delay line. The analysis of the expected spatial resolution and the measurement signal-to-noise ratio is provided. The measurement principle is supported by numerical simulations of the stimulated acoustic field as a function of position and time. Unlike most other Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis configurations, the proposed scheme is not restricted by the bandwidth of available electro-optic modulators, microwave synthesizers, or pattern generators. Resolution is scalable to less than one millimeter in highly nonlinear media.