Experimental study of Brillouin scattering in perfluorinated polymer optical fiber at telecommunication wavelength

Brillouin scattering properties in a perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber (POF) with 120 mu m core diameter were experimentally investigated using a laser with an operating wavelength of 1.55 mu m. The Brillouin frequency shift and the Brillouin bandwidth were 2.83 GHz and 105 MHz, respectively. The calculated Brillouin gain coefficient of 3.09x10(-11) m/W was comparable to that of fused silica fibers. The Brillouin threshold power of the 100 m POF was estimated to be 24 W, which we believe can be reduced by employing POFs with smaller cores. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3463038]