Performance of double sideband modulated probe wave in BOTDA distributed fiber sensor

We report on the performance of double sideband (DSB) modulated probe wave in Brillouin optical time domain analysis (BOTDA) distributed fiber sensor. Compared to single sideband (SSB) modulation, along the sensing fiber the pump depletion of DSB modulation is remarkably suppressed in time domain and also has a relatively narrower Brillouin gain spectrum in frequency domain. Both the theoretical simulation and the experimental results demonstrate that the DSB modulation provides potentially longer sensing distance and higher accuracy in measurement than the SSB modulation in the BOTDA distributed fiber sensor system.