Temperature and strain measurements using the power, line-width, shape, and frequency shift of the Brillouin loss spectrum

A Brillouin scattering based fiber sensor system has been developed by our Fiber Optics Group for the structural monitoring and civil engineering related applications. In this paper, the Brillouin loss spectrum has been characterized in terms of its center frequency, peak power, line-width and shape. These parameters have been considered as a function of the input pump and probe laser powers, the pump pulse duration, strain and temperature. The measurement accuracy has been studied at different Brillouin frequency steps to study the uncertainty of the Brillouin frequency, line-width, peak power and shape factor vs. signal to noise ratio, so that we can optimize the system performance. Characterization of the Brillouin loss spectrum led to the development of an innovative technique to measure the strain and temperature simultaneously using the strain and temperature dependence on the peak power in conjunction with the Brillouin frequency for the single mode fiber with 3m spatial resolution, 3°C temperature resolution and 200 ?? (?m/m) strain accuracy.