Brillouin Optical Correlation Domain Analysis Using Orthogonally Polarized Probe Sidebands

A single-mode fiber-based polarization-independent Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis system is experimentally demonstrated by applying orthogonally polarized probe sidebands. The Brillouin gain and loss on orthogonally polarized Stokes and anti-Stokesprobe waves are simultaneously measured by balanced detection. The output is processed by a differential measurement scheme for suppressing the polarization dependency of the Brillouin gain spectrum. Compared to a polarization diversity scheme using a polarization switch, the measurement speed is doubled, and the error is reduced by more than 50%.