title: Long-distance fiber-optic point-sensing systems based on random fiber lasers.
abstract: We find that the random fiber laser (RFL) without point-reflectors is a temperature-insensitive distributed lasing system for the first time. Inspired by such thermal stability, we propose the novel concept of utilizing the RFL to achieve long-distance fiber-optic remote sensing, in which the RFL offers high-fidelity and long-distance transmission for the sensing signal. Two 100 km fiber Bragg grating (FBG) point-sensing schemes based on RFLs are experimentally demonstrated using the first-order and the second-order random lasing, respectively, to verify the concept. Each sensing scheme can achieve >20 dB optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) over 100 km distance. It is found that the second-order random lasing scheme has much better OSNR than that of the first-order random lasing scheme due to enhanced lasing efficiency, by incorporating a 1455 nm FBG into the lasing cavity.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications (Education Ministry of China) University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, China. znwang@uestc.edu.cn
authors.forename: Z N
authors.initials: ZN
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Y J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: P Y
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: W L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Zhang