A theoretical and experimental study has been carried out on a tunable dual pump-probe optical source for distributed Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA). The developed source exploits a modified Brillouin ring laser technology and is capable of a tuning range of ∼200 MHz without using phaselocked loop or optical sideband generation techniques, and exhibits a linewidth smaller than 2.5 MHz and ∼0.5 mW power. In BOTDA experiments, the proposed source has demonstrated to be an efficient solution enabling distributed sensing over 10 km single mode fiber with a spatial resolution of ∼4 m, and a strain and temperature resolutions of ∼10 με and ∼0.5°C respectively.

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In this work we report on a tunable dual pump-probe optical source aimed at Brillouin optical time-and frequency-domain analysis sensing. The developed dual source exploits Brillouin ring laser technology and is capable of a large tuning range of ~200 MHz without using phase-locked loop or optical sideband generation techniques. With a linewidth narrower than 2.5 MHz and an output power ~0.5 mW, the proposed source has shown to be an efficient solution for Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) systems, allowing to achieve distributed sensing over 10 km single mode fiber in BOTDA experiments with strain and temperature resolutions of ~10 µε and ~ 0.5 °C respectively.