Brillouin scattering enhanced fibers for distributed sensing

A design methodology is presented for the enhancement of the Brillouin scattering properties of optical fiber for distributed sensing applications. Performance, such as sensitivity or resolution, of a distributed sensing system may be improved through the use of a fiber whose Brillouin gain spectrum is optimized for a desired application. Analogous to the design of a refractive index profile, the acoustic velocity profile may be tailored in order to realize the Brillouin spectrum. However, key to the implementation of the velocity profile is the selection of the appropriate compositional profiles. Design examples and dopant data are also presented and discussed.