Spectral analysis of Brillouin dynamic gratings in polarization-maintaining fibers

Abstract

Experiment observations show that the spectra of Brillouin dynamic gratings in polarization-maintaining fibers based on a polarization decoupled scheme are quite broad and usually have multiple peaks. In this paper, we measure the birefringence distribution along polarization-maintaining fibers with high spatial resolution using optical frequency-domain reflectometry. Based on birefringence measurements, both the simulation and experiment are carried out to determine the spectra of Brillouin dynamic gratings generated within the same polarization-maintaining fibers, indicating quantitatively that spectral broadening and irregularity are mainly due to phase mismatch caused by the non-uniformity of birefringence along polarization-maintaining fibers.