BOTDA sensors enhanced using high-efficiency second-order distributed Brillouin amplification

A novel approach for long-distance sensing through Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) assisted by second-order distributed Brillouin amplification (DBA) was proposed and experimentally demonstrated. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first BOTDA study that used second-order DBA. Compared with BOTDA assisted by first-order DBA, the proposed approach enhanced the signal-to-noise ratio of the Brillouin trace by ~3 dB for a range featuring minimum sensing intensity. Long-distance sensing with ~5 m spatial resolution and ± 1.6°C measurement uncertainty over ~99 km fiber was successfully realized by employing high-efficiency pumping using ~6 dBm second-order and ~1.5 dBm first-order pumps.