Polarization scrambling in Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry using polymer fibers

We evaluate whether the measurement stability of Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry (BOCDR) using polymer optical fibers (POFs) can be enhanced by polarization scrambling. In this study, two major factors that affect the signal-to-noise ratio in BOCDR, specifically, the spatial resolution and incident power, are varied, and their influences on distributed measurements with polarization scrambling are experimentally investigated. We thus confirm that in POF-based BOCDR, unlike in BOCDR using standard silica glass fibers, polarization scrambling is an effective means of enhancing the measurement stability only when the spatial resolution is sufficiently low or when the incident power is sufficiently high. (C) 2015 The Japan Society of Applied Physics