title: Effect of pulse depletion in a Brillouin optical time-domain analysis system.
abstract: Energy transfer between the interacting waves in a distributed Brillouin sensor can result in a distorted measurement of the local Brillouin gain spectrum, leading to systematic errors. It is demonstrated that this depletion effect can be precisely modelled. This has been validated by experimental tests in an excellent quantitative agreement. Strict guidelines can be enunciated from the model to make the impact of depletion negligible, for any type and any length of fiber.
authors.affiliation: EPFL Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Group for Fibre Optics, Institute of Electrical Engineering, SCI-STILT Station11, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. Luc.Thevenaz@EPFL.CH
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Thévenaz
authors.forename: Stella Foaleng
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Mafang
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008027:Light; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D014159:Transducers