Toward investigation of Brillouin scattering in multimode polymer and silica optical fibers

Abstract

In this paper, we present a study aimed at characterizing the optimal fiber optic components for Brillouin sensing in multimode fibers. For this purpose the use of single-mode and multimode circulators as well as couplers typically used in the Brillouin measurement setups was investigated. On the one hand the undesired coupling losses between conventional fiber optic measurement system components and a multimode sensor fiber can be overcome by replacing the single-mode components with their own multimode equivalents. On the other hand the use of multimode fiber optic circulators and multimode couplers affects the mode distribution of laser light which can impair the measurement signal backscattered in the multimode sensor fibers. In view of an increasing interest in high strain measurements using polymer optical fibers (POFs) as Brillouin-distributed sensors the investigation on Brillouin scattering effects in multimode fibers (MMFs) was performed on a low-loss perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber (PFGI-POF). The obtained results were compared with those of a standard graded-index multimode (GI-MMF) silica glass optical fiber (GOF). This study confirms the relevance of the adaptation of the measurement system components to the use of the multimode sensor fibers. In addition, due to mode coupling effects occurring in the tested POF itself, the results show differences in the yield of the components adaptation in the sensory implementation of the two kinds of the tested optical fibers.