Tesi sul tema "Brillouin scattering"

Acoustic modes guided by thin-film metal superlattices have been investigated using Brillouin spectroscopy. Samples were grown on both single-crystal sapphire and fused silica substrates by alternately sputtering two different metals to yield a total thickness in the range 0.3 - 0.5 μm. Structural and chemical characterization of the polycrystalline films was performed using x-ray diffraction. Rutherford backscattering and optical interferometry. Thermally excited acoustic waves in the metal film create a surface ripple which weakly interacts with light incident from a single mode argon laser. A tandem Fabry-Perot consisting of two synchronized 3-pass cavities is used to measure the frequency shift of light which is inelastically scattered from acoustic waves. The contrast ratio of this interferometer exceeds 10¹⁰ and provides sufficient stray light rejection to detect the surface Rayleigh wave and as many as 13 higher order acoustic modes. The elastic stiffness constants of the anisotropic superlattices were estimated by fitting the measured acoustic mode velocities to a parameterized acoustic model. A comparison is made between these elastic constants and those predicted from the properties of the separate bulk constituents. The dependence of bilayer wavelength on the elastic properties of both Cu/Nb and Mo/Ta superlattices over the range of roughly 10 to 200 Å was determined. The unexpected softening of Cu/Nb superlattices within a range of bilayer wavelengths near 20 Å which was reported previously is qualitatively similar to the measurements reported here. It is shown that the elastic stiffness coefficient with the largest variation is c₄₄. The stiffness variations determined for the Mo/Ta samples are much smaller than for Cu/Nb. It is suggested that this is due to either structural differences (Cu/Nb is fcc-bcc and Mo/Ta is bcc-bcc) or the smaller interfacial lattice mismatch for Mo/Ta. Interfacial strain is found to be strongly correlated with the stiffness variations of the Mo/Ta samples. However, the underlying cause of these variations in stiffness remains anomalous. This dissertation also reports the first observations of Love waves and Stoneley waves by Brillouin scattering. The purely transverse Love waves guided by Cu/Nb films were detected by elasto-optic scattering from the evanescent acoustic strain in the sapphire substrate. The stiffness coefficient c₁₂ of the hexagonally symmetric metal film cannot be determined by the other guided acoustic waves which ripple the surface. Molybdenum in contact with fused silica is predicted to support a Stoneley wave which is guided by the interface. The lowest order Sezawa made guided by a molybdenum film was found to evolve to the Stoneley wave as the film becomes thicker. These measurements together with measurements of the surface Rayleigh wave show that the stiffness of the sputtered metal films is quite homogeneous and independent of film thickness.

Orientador: Paulo Clóvis Dainese Júnior
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin
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Resumo: O Espalhamento Brillouin e um processo nao linear oriundo da interacao entre ondas opticas e acusticas. Este efeito foi amplamente estudado em fibras mono-modo e mais recentemente em uma grande variedade de micro-estruturas fotonicas. A habilidade de se fabricar estruturas que podem confinar ambas as ondas opticas e acusticas em dimensoes menores que o comprimento de onda criou novas oportunidades de se estudar a interacao foton-fonon. Um aspecto em particular que se torna importante em sistemas de alto confinamento e o efeito de deslocamento de borda (Shifting-Boundary), alem do efeito Elasto-Optico, mais bem entendido. Micro-fios de Silica sao ideais para estudar estes efeitos. Primeiro, quando seu diametro e menor que o comprimento de onda, o campo eletrico na superficie do guia de onda aumenta significativamente. Em segundo lugar, a interface ar-silica apresenta um alto contraste de indice de refracao, o que aumenta o espalhamento devido ao efeito de deslocamento de borda. Finalmente, a geometria cilindrica simples permite um calculo analitico da eficiencia do espalhamento Brillouin, considerando as perturbacoes tanto Elasto-Opticas como de Deslocamento de Borda. Nesta tese, estudamos teorica e experimentalmente o espalhamento Brillouin em microfios de Silica. Amostras com diametros de 0.6 a 3 ¿Êm foram fabricadas e caracterizadas utilizando um sistema de deteccao heterodina para os espalhamentos co-propagante e contra-propagante. Para o espalhamento Brillouin co-propagante, usamos a tecnica de bombeio e prova para induzir excitacao impulsiva dos modos acusticos proximos da frequencia de corte. Espalhamento devido a ondas acusticas do tipo Rayleigh foi observado e extensivamente caracterizado. Estas ondas sao particularmente interessantes, ja que a maior parte da energia acustica e concentrada proxima da superficie do guia de onda, o que aumenta a contribuicao do efeito de Deslocamento de Borda. Desenvolvemos estudos teoricos extensivos dos modos opticos e acusticos na geometria cilindrica, e aplicamos a teoria de modos acoplados para calcular a eficiencia de espalhamento para cada modo acustico. Um estudo da eficiencia de espalhamento em funcao do diametro foi feito, ajudando a entender melhor os mecanismos que determinam a evolucao do espectro Brillouin. Finalmente, fomos capazes de identificar modos nos quais o processo de espalhamento e dominado pelo efeito de Deslocamento de Borda, e modos nos quais o efeito dominante e o Elasto-Optico. Este entendimento pode contribuir no projeto de estruturas nas quais estes efeitos sao somados ou cancelados, e pode ser usado como outro mecanismo para controlar o processo de espalhamento Brillouin
Abstract: Brillouin scattering is a nonlinear process that arises from the interaction between op- tical and acoustic waves. This effect has been widely studied in standard single-mode fibers and more recently in a variety of photonics microstructures. The ability to fab- ricate structures that can confine both optical and acoustic waves in sub-wavelength dimensions has created new opportunities to study photon-phonon interaction. One particular aspect that becomes important in high-confinement systems is the effect of shifting boundaries, in addition to the better-understood elasto-optic effect. Silica mi- crowires are ideal systems to study these effects. First, when its diameter is smaller than the wavelength, the electric field overlaps strongly with the waveguide surface. Second, the air-silica interface presents high index contrast, which enhances scattering due to shifting boundary effect. Finally, the simple cylindrical geometry allows an- alytical calculation of Brillouin scattering efficiency considering both elasto-optic and shifting-boundary perturbations. In this thesis, we studied theoretically and experimentally Brillouin scattering in silica microwires. Samples with diameter ranging from 0.6 to 3 ?m were fabricated and char- acterized using heterodyne detection for both backward and forward Brillouin scattering. For forward Brillouin scattering, we used the pump and probe technique to induce impul- sive excitation of acoustic modes near cutoff. Scattering due to Rayleigh acoustic waves was observed and extensively characterized. These waves are particularly interesting as most of the acoustic energy is concentrated close to the waveguide surface, therefore enhancing the shifting boundary contribution. Theoretically, we developed extensive studies of optical and acoustic modes in cylindrical geometry, and applied coupled-mode theory to calculate the scattering efficiency for each acoustic mode. A study of the scat- tering efficiencies as a function of diameter was performed, helping better understand the mechanisms that determined the evolution of the Brillouin spectrum. Finally, we were able to identify modes in which the scattering process is dominated by shifting- boundary effect and modes in which elasto-optic dominates. This understanding may help design structures in which these effects add or cancel each other, and can be used as another mechanism to control Brillouin scattering process
Mestrado
Física
Mestre em Física
1142161/2012
CAPES

In a world where science is constantly challenged to solve problems of increasing complexity, light is paving new ways to gather information about the physical properties of matter. Among these properties, elasticity is becoming fundamental in the understanding and the diagnosis of several diseases. Current solutions to gather mechanical information, however, measure the response of a material to an applied excitation, which makes them invasive and limited by a low spatial resolution. In contrast with these techniques, Brillouin spectroscopy offers the unique solution to retrieve stiffness information from the spectrum of the light scattered by inherent thermal acoustic waves. The combination of Brillouin spectroscopy with confocal microscopy has yielded a confocal Brillouin microscope able to perform mechanical imaging in a non-invasive manner. This was used to investigate two different biological problems: on the one hand the stiffness variations in specific endothelium cells of the eye, aiming at a better understanding of the mechanisms responsible for glaucoma, and on the other the characterisation of the mechanical structures of blood vessels, which could provide fundamental information regarding the formation of atherosclerotic plaques. Following an investigation on the optimal geometry that minimises the spectral broadening caused by the collection of photons over a range of scattering angles, high resolution Brillouin imaging was obtained in a confocal backscattering arrangement. To the best of our knowledge this thesis presents, for the first time, sub-cellular Brillouin images. In particular, in vitro Brillouin images of single HUVEC cells were acquired to investigate the cell's mechanical response to the application of the Latrunculin-A drug. This analysis, together with the finding of a linear correlation between the Brillouin modulus and the standard Young's modulus, validates the technique as a feasible means of measuring stiffness. Following this assessment, Brillouin images of normal and diseased vessels were acquired showing that the atherosclerotic plaques had a lower stiffness compared to both diseased and healthy vessel walls. These results might encourage the application of confocal Brillouin microscopy as the tool of choice for the investigation of the arterial biomechanics.

[ES] Los efectos no lineales son herramientas valiosas en el procesamiento óptico. El obje-tivo de esta Tesis es contribuir con las nuevas arquitecturas y métodos a este campo, en particular al control de la polarización de la luz con luz y filtrado óptico de señales de microondas. La manipulación de las propiedades de la polarización de la luz en medios guiados es crucial en muchos sistemas ópticos clásicos y cuánticos. Sin embargo, la capacidad de la tecnología actual para definir con precisión el estado de polarización de determina-das longitudes de onda está lejos del nivel de madurez conseguido en el control de la amplitud. En el capítulo 3, se presenta un nuevo enfoque para el control totalmente óptico del estado de polarización con selectividad en longitud de onda, basado en el cambio del retardo fase por medio del stimulated Brillouin scattering. Los experimen-tos muestran que se puede llegar a cualquier punto de la esfera de Poincaré desde un estado de polarización de entrada arbitrario con tan solo una ligera variación en la amplitud de la señal (<2.5 dB). A diferencia de otros esquemas de procesamiento Bri-llouin, la degradación de la figura de ruido es pequeña (1.5 dB para una rotación completa en la esfera, 2pi). Este controlador de polarización completamente óptico puede forjar el desarrollo de nuevas técnicas basadas en la polarización en comunica-ciones ópticas, ingeniería laser, detección, sistemas cuánticos y sondeo basado en luz de sistemas químicos y biológicos. La segunda área de interés de la tesis se centra en el filtrado fotónico de microondas. La fotónica proporciona una implementación alternativa a los filtros de microondas. Las características proporcionadas por el scattering de Brillouin son muy atractivas para el diseño de filtro con especificaciones competitivas. El capítulo 4 está dedicado a los nuevos esquemas para el filtrado fotónico de microondas basado en SBS. En parti-cular, se presenta un método para mejorar la pendiente de los filtros fotónicos de mi-croondas basados en Brilouin. Esta mejora se logra mediante la combinación de las respuestas en ganancia y atenuación del Brillouin sobre la señal modulada en fase. Los resultados experimentales muestran una respuesta paso banda que exhibe una pendiente de 16.7 dB por octava, lo que corresponde con una mejora de 3 veces en comparación con la respuesta Lorentziana natural de la ganancia Brillouin. Sin embargo, la necesi-dad de 3 ondas de bombeo, es decir tres osciladores de microondas, incrementan la complejidad del sistema y dificulta la capacidad de ajuste. Para superar estas limita-ciones, se propone una segunda técnica para mejorar la pendiente de un filtro fotónico de microondas basado en scattering de Brillouin estimulado, el cual mantiene una fácil sintonización. Esta propuesta se basa en la dependencia de la polarización de la ganan-cia del Brillouin en fibras birrefringentes. La presencia de dos respuestas ortogonales de ganancia/atenuación Brillouin en fibras birrefringentes da como resultado dos res-puestas del filtro, que pueden ser sustraídas en un fotodetector balanceado para elimi-nar el lento decaimiento de la respuesta de ganancia natural Lorentziana del Brillouin. Los resultados experimentales muestran que se puede obtener una pendiente del filtro de 8.3 dB/oct. Finalmente, el documento de tesis proporciona conclusiones y actividades futuras abiertas por este trabajo de doctorado.
[CAT] Els efectes no lineals son ferramentes valuoses en el processament òptic. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi es contribuir amb les noves arquitectures i mètodes a aquest camp, en particular al control de la polarització de la llum amb llum i filtrar òptic de senyals de microones. La manipulació de les propietats de la polarització de la llum en mitjans guiats es cru-cial en molts sistemes òptics clàssics i quàntics. No obstant això, la capacitat de la tecnologia actual per definir amb precisió l'estat de polarització de determinades lon-gituds d'ona està lluny del nivell de maduresa aconseguit en el control de l'amplitud. En el capítol 3, es presenta un nou enfocament per al control totalment òptic de l'estat de polarització amb selectivitat en longitud d'ona, basat en el canvi del retard de fase mitjançant el stimulated Brillouin scattering. Els experiments mostren que es pot arri-bar a qualsevol punt de l'esfera de Poincaré des d'un estat de polarització d'entrada arbitrari amb tant sols una lleugera variació de l'amplitud de la senyal (<2.5 dB). A diferencia d'altres esquemes de processament Brillouin, la degradació de la figura de soroll es petita (1.5 dB per a una rotació completa en l'esfera, 2pi). Aquest controlador de polarització completament òptic pot forjar el desenvolupament de noves tècniques basades en la polarització en comunicacions òptiques, enginyeria làser, detecció, sis-temes quàntics y sondeig basat en llum de sistemes químics i biològics. La segona àrea d'interès de la tesi es centra en el filtrar fotònic de microones. La fo-tònica proporciona una implementació alternativa als filtres de microones. Les caracte-rístiques proporcionades per el scattering de Brillouin son molt atractives per al dis-seny de filtres amb especificacions competitives. El capítol 4 està dedicat als nous esquemes per al filtrat fotònic de microones basat en SBS. En particular, es presenta un mètode per a millorar la pendent dels filtres fotònics de microones basats en Bri-llouin. Aquesta millora s'aconsegueix mitjançant la combinació de les respostes en guany i atenuació del Brillouin sobre la senyal modulada en fase. Els resultats experi-mentals mostren una resposta pas banda que exhibeix una pendent de 16.7 dB per octava, el que correspon amb una millora de 3 vegades en comparació amb la resposta Lorentziana natural del guany Brillouin. Tot i això, la necessitat de 3 ones de bom-beig, es a dir tres oscil·ladors de microones, incrementen la complexitat del sistema i dificulta la capacitat d'ajust. Per superar aquestes limitacions, es proposa una segona tècnica per millorar la pendent d'un filtre fotònic de microones basat en scattering de Brillouin estimulat, el qual manté una fàcil sintonització. Aquesta proposta es basa en la dependència de la polarització del guany del Brillouin en fibres birefringents. La presència de dos respostes ortogonals de guany/atenuació Brillouin en fibres birefrin-gents dona com a resultat dos respostes del filtre, que poden ser sostretes en un fotode-tector balancejat per eliminar el lent decaïment de la resposta de guany natural Lo-rentziana del Brillouin. Els resultats experimentals mostren que es pot obtenir una pendent del filtre de 8.3 dB/oct. Finalment, el document de tesi proporciona conclusions i activitat futures obertes per aquest treball de doctorat.
[EN] Nonlinear effects are valuable tools in the field of optical processing. This Thesis is aimed at contributing with new architectures and methods to this field, in particular to the light-by-light control of polarization and optical filtering of microwave signals. The manipulation of the polarization properties of light in guided media is crucial in many classical and quantum optical systems. However, the capability of current technology to finely define the state of polarization of particular wavelengths is far from the level of maturity in amplitude control. In Chapter 3, a new approach for all-optical control of the state of polarization with wavelength selectivity based on the change of the phase retardance by means of stimulated Brillouin scattering is present-ed. Experiments show that any point on the Poincaré sphere can be reached from an arbitrary input state of polarization with little variation of the signal amplitude (< 2.5 dB). Unlike other Brillouin processing schemes, the degradation of the noise figure is small (1.5 dB for a full 2pi rotation). This all-optical polarization controller can forge the development of new polarization-based techniques in optical communication, laser engineering, sensing, quantum systems and light-based probing of chemical and biological systems. The second area of interest of the Thesis is photonic microwave filtering. Photonics provides an alternative implementation of microwave filters. The features provided by Brillouin scattering are very attractive to design filters with competitive specifications. Chapter 4 is devoted to new schemes for photonic microwave filtering based on SBS. In particular, a method to enhance the filter slope of Brillouin-based photonic microwave filters is presented. This improvement is achieved by the combination of Brillouin gain and loss responses over phase modulated signals. The experimental results show passband responses exhibiting a slope of 16.7 dB per octave, which corresponds with a 3-fold improvement in comparison to the natural Lorentzian response for the same gain. However, the need of three pump waves, i.e. three microwave oscillators, increases the system complexity and make tunability more difficult. To overcome these limitations, a second technique to enhance the slope of a photonic microwave filter based on stimulated Brillouin scattering is proposed, that maintains easy tunability. It relies on exploiting the polarization dependence of Brillouin gain in birefringent fibers. The presence of two orthogonal Brillouin gains/loss in birefringent fibers results in two filter responses that can be subtracted in a balanced photodetector to remove the slow Lorentzian decay of the natural Brillouin gain response. Experimental results show that a filter slope of 8.3 dB/oct can be obtained. Finally, the Thesis document provides conclusions and future activities opened by this PhD work.
Samaniego Riera, DP. (2019). OPTICAL PROCESSING BASED ON BRILLOUIN SCATTERING [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/124820
TESIS

Copies of author's previously published articles inserted. Bibliography: p. 169-176. Develops a one and three dimensional transient model of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering to investigate the transient regime of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering and recognize different transient phenomena that affect its performance.

The past decade has seen an increased interest in multiwavelength optical sources. Various methods and technologies exist for developing multiwavelength lasers with varying features and characteristics. A particular category that has gained much interest, are multiwavelength fiber lasers that combine nonlinear gain from stimulated Brillouin scattering with linear gain from erbium doped fibers.
This thesis demonstrates experimentally a Brillouin semiconductor multiwavelength fiber laser that utilizes semiconductor optical amplifiers as the linear gain medium. This novel technique allows for multiwavelength Brillouin fiber lasers to operate in any wavelength band for which SOAs are available. We begin by demonstrating a ring cavity configuration with a single wavelength output in the C/L bands. This configuration is enhanced for multiwavelength generation by the addition of a feedback path. The setup is then implemented in the O-band to demonste that the Brillouin fiber laser can be made to operate at any wavelength. Finally, several linear cavity configurations are explored and shown to improve the performance of the multiwavelength output in the O- and C/L- bands.

Fiber optic sensors are designed to measure various parameters. The distributed fiber optics sensor has been a very promising candidate for the structural health monitoring. In this thesis, we characterized LEAF (Large Effective Area Fiber) fiber’s Brillouin scattering spectrum and investigated its potentiality for the distributed Brillouin temperature and strain sensor. Optical fibers with complex refractive index profiles are applied to improve the Brillouin threshold by varying the Brillouin linewidth. As LEAF fiber has a modified refractive index profile, we investigated its Brillouin linewidth’s dependence on the square of the pump light’s frequency. We verified the Brillouin frequency’s variation with input SOP experimentally for LEAF fiber in the spontaneous regime. This sets a limitation for the frequency resolution of distributed Brillouin sensors. We also realized a simultaneous temperature and strain sensor with LEAF fiber applying the Brillouin optical time domain analysis. Based on the direct detection of LEAF beat frequencies, a simultaneous strain and temperature sensor was demonstrated.

The growth and saturation characteristics of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in the interaction of an intense (Ｉ≤ 10¹³ W/cm²) CO₂ laser beam with an underdense plasma are investigated experimentally. The plasma is produced by focussing a short (2 ns FWHM), CO₂ laser pulse onto a stabilized nitrogen gas jet which flows from a Laval nozzle into low pressure helium. The resulting SBS interaction is studied through observations of the intensity and spectral behavior of the backscattered light as well as through temporally resolved ruby laser Thomson scattering measurements of the spatial and spectral behavior of the SBS generated ion acoustic waves. SBS occurs primarily in the long scale length, low density plasma located in the background gas in front of the jet. Initially, the instability grows absolutely at a rate within a factor of two of the predicted temporal growth rate. The SBS reflectivity is observed to saturate at less than 10%. This low reflectivity is a result of two processes. First, the SBS interaction region and the associated ion acoustic waves are broken up into several smaller regions, hence limiting the coherence length of the waves, and second, the ion acoustic fluctuation amplitude saturates at less than 20%. The latter saturation is attributed to trapping of ions within the potential troughs of the ion acoustic waves. The observed occurrence of the first harmonic in the ion acoustic wave spectrum as well as temporal modulations in the wave amplitude and sidebands in the spectrum of the backscattered light can be explained as consequences of the ion trapping.
Science, Faculty of
Physics and Astronomy, Department of
Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2008.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-250).
Large superconducting magnets used in fusion reactors, as well as other applications, need a diagnostic that can non-invasively measure the temperature and strain throughout the magnet in real-time. A new fiber optic sensor has been developed for these long-length superconducting magnets that simultaneously measures the temperature and strain based on spontaneous Brillouin scattering in an optical fiber. Using an extremely narrow (200 Hz) linewidth Brillouin laser with very low noise as a frequency shifted local oscillator, the frequency shift of spontaneous Brillouin scattered light was measured using heterodyne detection. A pulsed laser was used to probe the fiber using Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (OTDR) to define the spatial resolution. The spontaneous Brillouin frequency shift and linewidth as a function of temperature agree well with previous literature of stimulated Brillouin data from room temperature down to 4 K. Analyzing the frequency spectrum of the scattered light after an FFT gives the Brillouin frequency shift, linewidth. and intensity. For the first time, these parameters as a function of strain have been calibrated down to 4 K. Measuring these three parameters allow for simultaneously determining the temperature and strain in real-time throughout a fiber with a spatial resolution on the order of several meters. The accuracy of the temperature and strain measurements vary over temperature-strain space, but an accuracy of better than + 2 K and ± 100 Pe are possible throughout most of the calibrated temperature-strain space (4-298 K and 0-3500 p/g). In the area of interest for low-temperature superconducting magnets (4-25 K), the temperature accuracy is better than + 1 degree.
(cont.) This temperature accuracy, along with the sub-second measurement time, allows this system to be used not only as a quench detection system, but also as a quench propagation diagnostic. The sensing fiber can also simultaneously provide the first ever spatially resolved strain measurement in an operating magnet.
by Scott Brian Mahar.
Ph.D.

This thesis reports on the use of spontaneous Brillouin scattering for the purpose of fibre-optic distributed temperature and strain sensing based on a time-domain Landau-Placzek ratio technique. Detection system specifications are dictated by the spatial resolution, range, measurand resolution and measurement time. Pulsed sources are used in these sensors. The minimum spatial resolution depends on both the pulse width and receiver bandwidth. The range and measurand resolution depend on the peak pulse power launched into the sensing fibre as well as the Brillouin signal-to-noise characteristics at the receiver. The maximum launched pulse power is limited by the onset of nonlinear effects in the sensing fibre. Novel interferometric techniques based on low-cost, low loss all fibre Mach-Zehnder interferometric optical filters needed to separate the backscattered Rayleigh and spontaneous Brillouin signals have been developed with enhanced signal-to-noise capabilities. Used in conjunction with a newly developed low noise optical preamplifier /transimpedance receiver system, a distributed temperature sensor having 1.8m spatial resolution, 6.3 °C temperature resolution and a range of 23km is demonstrated. The strain dependence of the spontaneous Brillouin intensity has been determined. This coefficient is crucial for the development of a distributed temperature only sensor and /or a combined distributed temperature and strain sensor. Pulsed narrowband and broadband sources are necessary for resolving the Rayleigh and Brillouin signals as well as reducing coherent Rayleigh noise. The latter has been investigated and its dependence on certain parameters confirmed. A source capable of switching between narrowband and broadband operation has been demonstrated and is particularly appropriate for extended periods of data collection cycles.

Coherent interactions between light and sound have been of significant interest since the invention of the laser. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is a type of coherent interaction where light is scattered from optically generated acoustic waves. SBS is a powerful tool for optical and microwave signal processing, with applications ranging from telecommunications and Radar, to spatial sensing and microscopy. Over the last decade there has been increasing interest in the investigation of Brillouin scattering at device scales smaller than the wavelength of light. New interactions with the waveguide boundaries in these systems are capable of altering the strength of SBS, from complete suppression to orders of magnitude increases. The landmark demonstration of Brillouin scattering in planar waveguides, just six years ago, represents a new frontier for this field. This work explores the effective generation and harnessing of stimulated Brillouin scattering within modern photonic circuits. After establishing the foundations of linear and nonlinear optical circuits, we investigate the Brillouin processes available in multimode waveguides. We experimentally demonstrate giant Brillouin amplification using spiral waveguides consisting of soft-glass materials. We then integrate this soft-glass onto the standard platform for photonic circuits, silicon on insulator, without any reduction in performance. We apply these advanced devices to the field of microwave photonics and create high suppression microwave filters with functionality far beyond traditional electronic circuits. This thesis is a significant step towards Brillouin enabled integrated photonic processors.

Microwave photonics (MWP) is an established field that promises to solve many of the issues with current electronics-based Radio Frequency (RF) components. MWP enables high RF carrier frequencies, broad bandwidths, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. It encodes long-wavelength microwave signals on a short wavelength optical carrier. The reduction in wavelength enables compact devices as well as optical techniques and phenomena for signal manipulation. One particularly powerful approach for signal manipulation is Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS), which is an optical third-order nonlinear optical effect based on photon-phonon interactions. SBS is useful for MWP as it enables gain-based phase shifts and can be extremely narrow or broadband depending on the optical pump configuration. Integrating the MWP system into an optical chip serves to improve size, weight and power characteristics while also improving stability and reducing fabrication costs. However, many applications require very large amounts of SBS gain which may not be achievable in an integrated platform or would use a prohibitively large amount of power. In this thesis, we explore the interaction between SBS and RF interference to overcome these limitations and enable entirely new applications which would otherwise not be possible with SBS alone. The methods developed in this thesis reduced the Brillouin gain requirement for a 360◦ phase shift by more than 50dB. We also developed an SBS based true time delay using RF interference, separate carrier tuning and passive ring resonators to further reduce the Brillouin gain requirement with an enhancement factor of 30. We also demonstrate an image rejection frequency mixer, which uses RF interference to remove in-band interference, and SBS to select the useful part of the spectrum for down-conversion. The work in this thesis opens the door to new possibilities of ultra-wideband and reconfigurable on-chip microwave signal processing.

Le cadre général dans lequel s’insère ce travail de thèse est celui de l’étude de la diffusion Brillouin dans une nouvelle génération de fibres optiques à cristaux photoniques (PCFs). Ces fibres, qui présentent un arrangement périodique de micro-canaux d’air parallèles le long de la fibre, possèdent en effet des propriétés optiques et acoustiques remarquables et inédites par rapport aux fibres conventionnelles. De façon plus précise, nous montrons dans ce travail, par le biais de simulations numériques et de données expérimentales, que les fibres à cristaux photoniques offrent la possibilité de supprimer ou, à contrario, augmenter les interactions entre les photons et les phonons. Dans une première partie, nous présentons une méthode de cartographie des fluctuations longitudinales de la microstructure des fibres PCFs à l’aide d’un capteur distribué basé sur une méthode innovante d’écho Brillouin. Cette méthode, très sensible et à haute résolution, est directement intéressante pour caractériser et améliorer l’uniformité des PCFs lors de leur fabrication et également pour la détection des différentes contraintes de température et étirement induites le long des fibres. Sur le plan fondamental, notre système de mesure distribuée à haute résolution nous a également permis d’observer, pour la première fois à notre connaissance, le temps de vie des ondes acoustiques dans les fibres à cristaux photoniques et les fibres standard. Par ailleurs, sur le plan technique, nous avons développé une architecture simplifiée de capteur distribué combinant la technique des échos Brillouin et celle de la modulation différentielle par déplacement de phase avec un seul modulateur d’intensité. Nos résultats montrent une résolution centimétrique dans la zone de soudure entre deux fibres optiques à l’aide d’une impulsion de phase de 500 ps. Nous démontrons dans une deuxième partie la suppression directe et passive de la rétrodiffusion Brillouin stimulée dans une fibre optique micro structurée en faisant varier périodiquement le diamètre de la microstructure. Une augmentation de 4 dB du seuil de puissance Brillouin a été obtenue avec une variation de seulement 7% sur une période de 30m. Ce résultat est très intéressant car la diffusion Brillouin est un facteur limitant dans les systèmes de télécommunications par fibre optique et les lasers à fibre. La troisième et dernière partie est consacrée à l’étude numérique et expérimentale de la diffusion Brillouin en avant dans les fibres à cristaux photoniques. En plus de la suppression de la plupart des modes acoustiques transverses, nous montrons que cette diffusion Brillouin est fortement augmentée pour certains modes acoustiques à haute fréquence qui sont piégés au cœur de la microstructure. Nous avons également étudié une fibre à structure multi-échelle qui révèle l’excitation sélective de plusieurs phonons acoustiques à des fréquences allant jusqu’a 2GHz. Ces mesures ont étés confirmées par des simulations numériques basées sur une méthode vectorielle aux éléments finis. L’impact des irrégularités de la microstructure a aussi été mis en évidence.Mots clés : optique non linéaire, diffusion Brillouin, fibres optiques microstructurées, seuil Brillouin, capteurs Brillouin distribués
Brillouin scattering is a fundamental nonlinear opto-acoustic interaction present in optical fibers with important implications in fields ranging from modern telecommunication networks to smart optical fiber sensors. This thesis is aimed at providing a comprehensive theoretical and experimental investigation of both forward and backward Brillouin scattering in next generation photonic crystal fibers in view of potential applications to above mentioned fields. We show in particular that these micro-structured optical fibers have the remarkable ability to either suppress or enhance photon-phonon interactions compared to what is commonly observed in conventional fibers. Firstly, this thesis provides a complete experimental characterization of several photonic crystal fibers using a novel highly-resolved distributed sensing technique based on Brillouin echoes. We perform distributed measurements that show both short-scale and long-scale longitudinal fluctuations of the periodic wavelength-scale air-hole microstructure along the fibers. Our mapping technique is very sensitive to structural irregularities and thus interesting for fiber manufacturers to characterize and improve the fiber uniformity during the drawing process. With this technique, we also report the first experimental observationof the acoustic decay time and the Brillouin linewidth broadening in both standard and photonic crystal fibers. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a simplified architecture of our Brillouin echoes-based distributed optical fiber sensor with centimeter spatial resolution. It is based on differential phase-shift keying technique using a single Mach-Zehnder modulator to generate a pump pulse and a _-phase-shifted pulse with an easy and accurate adjustment of delay. These sensing techniques are also applied to distributed strain measurement. Another aspect of this thesis is the investigation of a novel method for suppressing stimulated Brillouin scattering that is detrimental to optical fiber transmissions and fiber lasers. We experimentally study several fibers and a demonstrate 4 dB increase of the Brillouin threshold in a photonic crystal fiber by varying periodically the core diameter by only7%. The efficiency of this passive technique is verified by use of our distributed sensing technique where the oscillating Brillouin frequency shift is clearly observed.Lastly, we present experimental and numerical results demonstrating the simultaneous vi Abstract frequency-selective excitation of several guided acoustic Brillouin modes in a photonic crystal fiber with a multi-scale structure design. These guided acoustic modes are identified by using a full vector finite-element model to result from elastic radial vibrations confined by the air-silica microstructure. We further show the strong impact of structural irregularities of the fiber on the frequency and modal shape of these acoustic resonances

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-227) A study of phase conjugation by stimulated Brillouin scattering is presented with emphasis on the limiting factors, such as aperture and polarization losses, spatial coherence and saturation of the incident wave on the quality of phase conjugation, as well as the application of stimulated Brillouin scattering to loop phase-cojugated mirror and intracavity-SBS-cell-phase-conjugated oscillator.

The interest in one dimensional (1D) magnetism has been strongly renewed with the synthesis of many magnetic compounds which exhibit a quasi one dimensional magnetic behaviour. One of the peculiarities of this 1D system is the absence of a long range magnetic ordered phase at any finite temperature for the ideal 1D system with short range interaction. Tetramethylammonium manganese chloride (CH3)4NMnCl3(TMMC) exhibits the properties of an ideal one dimensional antiferromagnets for temperature above 1 K, the transition to a three dimensional (3D) long range ordered state only occurs at 0.84K. In addition to its magnetic transition, TMMC exhibits structural phase transition due to the ordering of the tetramethylammonium (TMA) ions which makes also this compound very attractive from a lattice dynamical point of view. Structural phase transitions of tetramethylammonium manganese chloride (TMMC), tetramethylammonium manganese bromide (TMMB) and tetramethylammonium manganese chloride doped with 8% Cu (TMMC:Cu) of the hexagonal type compounds are investigated using the Brillouin scattering method. These crystals show pronounced acoustic anomalies in the region of the structural phase transition. The acoustic anomalies were observed by measuring sound velocity and hence the elastic constant can be deduced. The phase transition temperatures were observed at 129.6K and 388.6K (TMMC), 114.6K and 377.6K (TMMB) and at 108.6K and 359.6K (TMMC:Cu). The elastic constant at room temperature were C11 = 2.10 (TMMC) and C11 = 1.59 (TMMB) in units of 1010 Nm-2. The phase transition of these compounds were further investigated macroscopically using the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) method. Activation energies of TMMC, TMMC:Cu, TMMB and deuterated TMMB at the phase transition were determined using this method. The values are 70.612 kJ/mol (TMMC), 49.224 kJ/mol (TMMC:Cu), 51.747 kJ/mol (TMMB) and 69.909 kJ/mol (d12-TMMB). The elastic constant of the linear chain antiferromagnet CsNiCl3 and RbNiCl3 was also determined using the Brillouin scattering method. The room temperature measurements give C11 = 3.77 (3.71) and C33 = 5.62 (5.42) in units of 1010 Nm·2 for CsNiCl3 and RbNiCl3 respectively. The phonon dispersion curves at room temperature in the hexagonal CsFeBr3 have been studied using the inelastic neutron scattering technique. From the initial slope of the dispersion curve, the sound velocity was deduced which enable us to calculate the elastic constant of CsFeBr3 at room temperature. The values obtained are C11 = 7.33, C66 = 1.01, C33 = 2.58 and C44 = 0.56 in units of 1010 Nm·2.

Thesis (Sc. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1994.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-171).
by Stephen Paul Smith.
Sc.D.

The production of high power, short duration laser pulses is of interest to a wide variety of applications ranging from high-energy-density physics to laser-driven nuclear fusion. The exploitation of laser-plasma instabilities, in particular stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), for the creation of such pulses is found to have great potential. Analysis from numerical, analytical and experimental studies are presented within this thesis which were constructed to develop a platform of knowledge to enable the understanding and development of stimulated Brillouin scattering as a possible means of laser amplification to ultra-high intensities. From these studies a number of scaling laws were developed governing the optimal parameter space for the laser pump beam, probe beam and the plasma amplifier in addition to the ability to control the final amplified pulse characteristics. Optimum regions of parameter space occurring at a density of 0.3nc with pump and seed laser intensities of 1x10¹⁶16Wcm⁻² and 1x10¹⁵Wcm⁻², respectively, were found to produce efficient laser amplification of 57%. The scalability to wider regions of parameter space was also confirmed for laser intensities down to 1x10¹³3Wcm⁻². The presence of Brillouin scattering was noted for all underdense plasmas studied with Brillouin amplification being effective for densities greater than the quarter critical density level due to mode competition with Raman scattering. Collisional processes were also investigated and it was found that the introduction of collisions results in an increase in the efficiency of laser amplification via stimulated Brillouin scattering by 10% and a significant increase in the contrast of the resultant seed laser beam. Corroboration between the numerical, analytical and experimental studies undertaken indicates a high level of reliability in the results presented throughout this thesis.

This thesis reports on an investigation into the application of Brillouin scattering for the purpose of distributed fibre optic sensing. The main focus of the work has been centred on a Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer (BOTDR) system. The behaviour of short (3m), medium (60m) and long (6km) erbium doped fibre amplifiers using narrow bandwidth pulsed signals has been investigated and the most suitable configuration for the source requirement of the BOTDR identified. The operation of a (BOTDR) system has been demonstrated at the low loss window of 1.5µm wavelength. Multiple Stokes orders of stimulated Brillouin scattering in a medium length erbium doped fibre amplifier using pulsed excitation are reported. The observed stimulated Brillouin threshold power is significantly reduced as a result of optical gain. The points of origin within the fibre of the generated Stokes pulses are located using space-time diagrams and are observed to depend on the Brillouin and Erbium pump powers. This has therefore been identified as a possible mechanism for sensing applications utilizing the novel technique of varying the pump powers to spatially interrogate the fibre. Measurements of the Brillouin scattering coherence length in silica fibre using a fibre Mach Zehnder interferometer are presented. As the Brillouin pump power is increased from below to above stimulated threshold, the line shape narrows and changes from that of a Lorentzian to a Gaussian. It is also shown that the Brillouin bandwidth approaches a limiting value. It is shown experimentally that the ratio of the intensities of Rayleigh and Brillouin backscattered light (Landau Placzek ratio) in an optical fibre has a temperature dependence which may be used for the basis of a distributed temperature sensor. This result, combined with the known frequency dependence of the Brillouin backscattering on temperature and strain, indicates spontaneous Brillouin backscatter may be used for the unique determination of either temperature or strain in a distributed fibre optic sensing system. Because of the coherent nature of Rayleigh scattering, use of the same narrow bandwidth source as required for the Brillouin signal in the Landau Placzek ratio method, results in significant coherent noise in the Rayleigh signal. A novel technique is demonstrated whereby the amplified spontaneous emission noise and amplifying properties of an erbium doped fibre amplifier may be exploited to reduce the coherent noise on the Rayleigh backscatter signal. This results in a significant improvement in both temperature and spatial resolution.

Brillouin scattering has been verified to be an effective mechanism in temperature and strain sensing. This kind of sensors can be applied to civil structural monitoring of pipelines, railroads, and other industries for disaster prevention. This thesis first presents a novel fiber sensing scheme for long-span fully-distributed pressure measurement based on Brillouin scattering in a side-hole fiber. After that, it demonstrates that Brillouin frequency keeps linear relation with temperature up to 1000°C; Brillouin scattering is a promising mechanism in high temperature distributed sensing. A side-hole fiber has two longitudinal air holes in the fiber cladding. When a pressure is applied on the fiber, the two principal axes of the fiber birefringence yield different Brillouin frequency shifts in the Brillouin scattering. The differential Brillouin scattering continuously along the fiber thus permits distributed pressure measurement. Our sensor system was designed to analyze the Brillouin scattering in the two principal axes of a side-hole fiber in time domain. The developed system was tested under pressure from 0 to 10,000 psi for 100m and 600m side-hole fibers, respectively. Experimental results show fibers with side holes of different sizes possess different pressure sensitivities. The highest sensitivity of the measured pressure induced differential Brillouin frequency shift is 0.0012MHz/psi. The demonstrated spatial resolution is 2m, which maybe further improved by using shorter light pulses.
Master of Science

The importance of optical signal processing techniques is growing rapidly in recent years due to the exponentially increasing demand for bandwidth, capacity and power efficiency in communications and computing. However, due to their bosonic nature photons do not interact with each other, unless there is a nonlinear medium mediating the interaction. One of the strongest nonlinear effects is the interaction of light waves, photons, with sound-waves, acoustic phonons, which is known as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). This thesis experimentally investigates SBS in photonic chips. It is shown in this thesis that the fundamental interaction strength between light and sound waves can be tailored by using one-dimensional photonic bandgap structures, completely suppressing the effect or alternatively enhancing the interaction to form phase-locked Brillouin frequency combs. It was shown furthermore that efficiently generating SBS on-chip enables the generation of stable RF signals that are widely tunable in frequency. Finally, it is shown in this thesis that SBS enables the storage of light signals on a chip, one of the holy grails of all-optical signal processing. Delaying optical signals is of key importance in optical networks to enable synchronization, buffering, and rerouting. SBS enables large delays by resonantly transferring an optical signal to an acoustic wave, that travels five orders of magnitude slower and retrieving it after a certain storage time. It is demonstrated in this thesis that a Brillouin-based memory (BBM) technique allows storing amplitude and phase of optical data pulses and operate at multiple wavelengths with minimal cross-talk. Replenishing of the acoustic wave to overcome storage time limitations imposed by the lifetime of the acoustic wave as well as non-reciprocal light storage is also shown.

The goal of this dissertation has been to develop techniques in order to use Brillouin spectroscopy as a tool for studying the elastic properties of thin films on a scale of ≃100 Å. In order to develop that capability we have built a tandem multi-pass Fabry-Perot interferometer, and that interferometer was used to study the elastic properties of Langmuir-Blodgett films. These films were chosen because they can be deposited one molecular layer at a time. As a result of these investigations we have measured the density and elastic constants of the Langmuir-Blodgett film cadmium arachidate. Samples of cadmium arachidate were prepared on molybdenum and BK-7 glass substrates. Data were accumulated for a range of thicknesses and for different scattering geometries. These data will be used to argue that guided acoustic waves were observed in a highly anisotropic film. The observed guided acoustic waves will be identified as a Rayleigh wave and a tight band of Sezawa modes. No Love modes were detected in these experiments; however, evidence for reorientational modes typical of anisotropic liquids was detected. The dispersion of the Rayleigh wave as a function of thickness together with thick film scattering data were used to estimate the elastic constants in cadmium arachidate. In particular the shear elastic constant c₄₄ was found to be a small value: c₄₄ < 4.0x10⁸ N/m². The remaining elastic constants were estimated, assuming hexagonal film symmetry, to be c₆₆ < 4.5x10⁹ N/m², C₁₁ ≃ 1.1x10¹⁰ N/m², c₃₃ ≃ 2.1x10¹⁰ N/m², c₁₃ ≃ 1.0x10¹⁰ N/m², and c₁₂ > 3.x10¹⁰ N/m². It is interesting to note that the acoustical behavior of cadmium arachidate is quite similar to the smectic phase liquid crystals (c₄₄ = 0).

Orientador: Hugo L. Fragnito
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Fisica Gleb Wataghin
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-09T05:15:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DaineseJunior_PauloClovis_D.pdf: 4977952 bytes, checksum: 68cd4c3ce792cf4994babe5cce9b77a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006
Resumo: Esta tese apresenta estudos experimentais e teóricos sobre o processo de espalhamento Brillouin em Fibras de Cristal Fotônico. Formadas por um núcleo sílica pura e uma casca micro-estruturada (sílica e ar), estas fibras permitem o confinamento óptico e acústico em regiões da ordem do comprimento de onda. Como resultado, a interação acústo-óptica apresenta características radicalmente diferentes daquelas observadas em meio bulk ou em fibras convencionais. Investigamos experimentalmente ambos co- e retro-espalhamento Brillouin. Observamos que quando o diâmetro do núcleo é ~70 % do comprimento de onda óptico no vácuo, o espectro de retro-espalhamento espontâneo apresenta múltiplos picos, os quais atribuímos a famílias de modos acústicos guiados no núcleo da fibra. Além disso, o limiar de retro-esplhamento Brillouin estimulado aumenta por um fator ~5 quando o diâmetro do núcleo é diminuído de 8 .m para 1.22 .m , resultado da natureza complexa dos modos acústicos no núcleo, contendo fortes componentes de deslocamento longitudinal e transversal. No caso de co-espalhamento, realizamos medidas de espalhamento espontâneo e de excitação impulsiva de ondas acústicas utilizando pulsos ópticos de alta intensidade, através do efeito de eletrostrição. Estes experimentos nos possibilitaram observar o confinamento transversal de ondas acústicas no núcleo da fibra fotônica. Desenvolvemos um modelo analítico para a interação acústo-óptica, aproximando o núcleo da fibra como um cilindro de silica suspenso no vácuo, sem a presença da casca. Este modelo nos permitiu entender a física envolvida no processo e também explicar qualitativamente as observações experimentais. Modelos numéricos mais sofisticados foram utilizados para o cálculo dos modos acústicos e óptico suportados pela estrutura completa da fibra fotônica, os quais nos permitiram explicar mais precisamente as observações experimentais. Finalmente, realizamos cálculos numéricos da estrutura de bandas da região micro-estruturada, demonstrando a presença de bandas proibidas (ou gaps fonônicos) para as ondas acústicas
Abstract: This thesis presents experimental and theorethical studies on Brillouin scattering in Photonic Crystal Fibers. With a pure silica core surrounded by a microstructed cladding (silica and air), these fibers allow the confinement of both acoustic and optical waves in sub-wavelength regions. The result is a radically different acousto-optic interaction from what has been observed in bulk media or conventional fibers. We investigate experimentally both forward and backward Brillouin scattering. We observed that for core diameters of around 70% of the vacuum wavelength of the launched laser light, the spontaneous Brillouin signal develops an unusual multi-peaked spectrum, these peaks we attribute to several families of guided acoustic modes. At the same time the threshold power for stimulated Brillouin scattering increases five-fold when the core diameter is reduced from from 8 .m to 1.22 .m , as a consequence of the complex nature of the acoustic modes, each with different proportions of longitudinal and shear strain, strongly localised to the core. In the case of forward scattering, we performed measurements of the spontaneous scattering and also of impulsive excitation of acoustic waves using high intensity optical pulses, through the effect of electrostriction. These experiments allowed us to observe the transverse confinment of acoustic waves in the core of the photonic crystal fiber. An analitic model for the acousto-optic interaction was developed by approximating the core of the photonic fiber by a circular strand of glass in vaccum, initially neglecting the presence of the micro-structured cladding. This simple model allowed us to understand the physics involved in the scattering process and also to qualitatevely explain our experimental observations. Numerical models were then implemented to calculate the acoustic and optical modes of the actual photonic fiber structure, and we were able to explain more precisely our observations. Finnally, we performed numerical calculation of the band structure of the micro-structured region, demonstrating the presence of prohibited gaps for the acoustic wave (phononics band gaps)
Doutorado
Física
Doutor em Ciências

Compact optical frequency comb sources with gigahertz repetition rates are desirable for various important applications including arbitrary optical waveform generation, microwave synthesis, spectroscopy and advanced telecommunications. This thesis investigates the exploitation of the interplay of two distinct nonlinear optical effects for the generation of gigahertz repetition rate frequency combs: stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and the optical Kerr-effect. This interplay can lead to the generation of Brillouin frequency combs (BFCs) with repetition rates that are equal to the acoustic resonance associated with SBS. This resonance frequency is about 8 GHz, making BFCs ideal for the advanced photonic applications of interest. In this thesis, we experimentally demonstrate BFCs with equally spaced comb modes that exhibit a stable and repeatable spectral phase. The BFCs are generated in chalcogenide fibre and in chalcogenide waveguides on photonic chips. Through theoretical and numerical investigations we show that, whilst SBS provides the high repetition rate of the combs, the Kerr-nonlinearity plays an important role in achieving equally spaced and phase-coherent spectral components. We also study the interplay of BFCs and photosensitivity via multiphoton absorption in chalcogenide fibres and photonic chips. We show that this interplay can be used to internally inscribe multiwavelength gratings that exhibit several stopbands that are spaced by the acoustic resonance frequency. We then use these gratings in an SBS configuration and demonstrate a significant enhancement of BFC generation by exploiting the slow light effects associated with the grating band edges. This body of work represents an advance in the understanding of BFCs. We study the physics behind phase-coherent BFC generation. The demonstration of chip-based BFC generation is a step towards an all integrated, gigahertz repetition rate, optical frequency comb source. We also demonstrate a novel and flexible method for enhancing chip-based BFC generation that can potentially be extended to other nonlinear effects.

Random fiber lasers, a new type of fiber laser that uses disordered medium to provide distributed feedback, have drawn considerable interest in the photonics community over the past ten years. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), with a typical narrow spectral width of ~100 MHz, provides an important gain mechanism for random fiber lasers. Brillouin random fiber laser (BRFL) has shown excellent advantages in generating highly coherent photons and in ultrasound sensing. However, the accompanied large intensity noise in BRFLs hinders its further performance improvement and practical applications. In order to design a low noise BRFL, it is important to explore the fundamental physics behind BRFL and study its output characteristics. This thesis focuses on the study of random lasing mechanism in BRFL, which lays the foundation for the demonstration of a low noise BRFL. The main research results and contributions are as follows: (1) In order to understand the dynamic noise properties of BRFLs, the properties of the acoustic wave generated by BRFL, including its intrinsic spectral width, intensity dynamics, distributed spectrum and distributed intensity statistics are characterized for the first time. The characterization method is based on the SBS enhanced polarization decoupled four wave mixing process, where the pump wave, Stokes wave, probe wave and reflected probe wave are coupled through the fiber density variation induced by the acoustic wave. It is demonstrated that the intrinsic spectral width of the acoustic wave in the Brillouin gain fiber depends on the spectral convolution of pump light and Stokes light. Stochastic behaviour is introduced to the intensity dynamics of the acoustic wave when the linewidth of the pump light (or the Stokes light) is larger than several MHz. The distributed spectra of the dynamic grating are determined by the birefringence of the Brillouin gain fiber, which have maximum change on the order of 10-7 to 10-6 when the BRFL is on operation. Different proportion of optical rogue waves are detected at high gain position and low gain position near the lasing threshold, proving the nonlinear amplification of the SBS process. (2) In order to study the mode selection mechanism of the distributed random feedback and explore new physics phenomenon in BRFLs, the conventional Rayleigh scattering fiber in BRFL is replaced by the artificially controlled random scattering medium. First, weak FBG array with random spacing offers distributed feedback with varied length, which demonstrate the longitudinal mode filter function of the distributed random feedback. Single longitudinal mode operation of BRFL is realized by using appropriate length of the FBG array. Then, scattering from random fiber grating (RFG) with varied grating period is used to provide feedback for BRFL. The enhanced backscattering strength from RFG improves the slope efficiency of BRFL to 29.3% and reduces the lasing threshold to 10.2 mW. By calculating the correlation of the intensity fluctuation spectra from trace to trace, the correlation of two traces is found to be dependent on the specific two chosen traces, demonstrating the replica symmetry breaking phenomenon in photonics. (3) RFG with relatively large refractive index modulation shows potentials in improving the performance of the BRFL. In order to investigate the working mechanism of the RFG, optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) with spatial resolution of 8 μm is employed to characterize the property of RFG. The backscattering strength and spectral response of RFG is highly related to the degree of randomness of RFG. Theoretically, entropy is introduced to build a quantitative relationship between the degree of randomness and backscattering strength of the RFG based on the transfer matrix method. A linear relationship between the average reflectivity of the RFG in dB scale and sub-grating’s entropy is found. Further, based on a polarization maintaining RFG, a low noise BRFL is proposed and demonstrated. Compared to Rayleigh scattering, the polarization maintaining RFG can tolerate environmental perturbation, leading to a 20 dB intensity noise suppression of the BRFL in the low frequency domain from 10 Hz to 1 kHz. (4) The dynamic properties of the slowly varying frequency drift of a dual-wavelength BRFL in polarization maintaining fiber are characterized. Two principal lasing peaks in each polarization are enabled by the combined distributed Rayleigh scattering and the Brillouin gain provided by the polarization maintaining fiber with large birefringence. Polarization dependent and polarization independent spectral variations are studied in the dual-wavelength BRFL due to the environmental perturbation and gain competition. The probability distribution of the lasing frequency exhibits a dip near the mean frequency that is caused by the spectral hole burning. By calculating the matrix of the Pearson correlation coefficient, the internal correlations between different part of random fiber laser spectra are found, which enhances the understanding of the fundamental physics of random lasing process.

Brillouin scattering based distributed fiber optic sensing as a novel technique has attracted much attention in both research and application for the past ten years. The fiber optic group at the University of Ottawa has developed an advanced automatic Brillouin sensing system and improved it continuously. This thesis presents the characterization and optimization of this sensing system and a series of successful applications both in the laboratory and in the field. Several parameters have been studied around the pulse generation subsystem: such as, bias, leakage, PW voltage, pulsewidth, and repetition frequency. Bias is found to be the most important parameter. We also discuss the relationships between the system repeatability and control parameters such as bias, polarization states, averages and frequency lock methods. Four successful applications of the distributed Brillouin sensing system are reported in the thesis. They are strain measurement in a reinforced concrete beam, simultaneous strain and temperature monitoring of composite curing process, strain and temperature monitoring of a concrete structure, and temperature compensated strain measurement of the load test on the Rollinsford Bridge.

Boyd's SBS model which includes distributed thermal acoustic noise (DTAN) has been enhanced to enable the Stokes-spontaneous density depletion noise (SSDDN) component of the transmitted optical field to be simulated, probably for the first time, as well as the full transmitted field. SSDDN would not be generated from previous SBS models in which a Stokes seed replaces DTAN. SSDDN becomes the dominant form of transmitted SBS noise as model fibre length (MFL) is increased but its optical power spectrum remains independent of MFL. Simulations of the full transmitted field and SSDDN for different MFLs allow prediction of the optical power spectrum, or system performance parameters which depend on this, for typical communication link lengths which are too long for direct simulation. The SBS model has also been innovatively improved by allowing the Brillouin Shift Frequency (BS) to vary over the model fibre length, for the nonuniform fibre model (NFM) mode, or to remain constant, for the uniform fibre model (UFM) mode. The assumption of a Gaussian probability density function (pdf) for the BSF in the NFM has been confirmed by means of an analysis of reported Brillouin amplified power spectral measurements for the simple case of a nominally step-index single-mode pure silica core fibre. The BSF pdf could be modified to match the Brillouin gain spectra of other fibre types if required. For both models, simulated backscattered and output powers as functions of input power agree well with those from a reported experiment for fitting Brillouin gain coefficients close to theoretical. The NFM and UFM Brillouin gain spectra are then very similar from half to full maximum but diverge at lower values. Consequently, NFM and UFM transmitted SBS noise powers inferred for long MFLs differ by 1-2 dB over the input power range of 0.15 dBm. This difference could be significant for AM-VSB CATV links at some channel frequencies. The modelled characteristic of Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (CNR) as a function of input power for a single intensity modulated subcarrier is in good agreement with the characteristic reported for an experiment when either the UFM or NFM is used. The difference between the two modelled characteristics would have been more noticeable for a higher fibre length or a lower subcarrier frequency.

In 1920, Leon Brillouin discovered a new kind of light scattering – Brillouin scattering – which occurs as a result of the interaction of light with a transparent material’s temporal periodic variations in density and refractive index. Many advances have since been made in the study of Brillouin scattering, in particular in the field of fiber optics. An in-depth investigation of Brillouin scattering in optical fibers has been carried out in this thesis, and the theory of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and combined Brillouin gain and loss has been extended. Additionally, several important applications of SBS have been found and applied to current technologies. Several mathematical models of the pump-probe interaction undergoing SBS in the steady-state regime have emerged in recent years. Attempts have been made to find analytical solutions of this system of equations, however, previously obtained solutions are numerical with analytical portions and, therefore, qualify as hybrid solutions. Though the analytical portions provide useful information about intensity distributions along the fiber, they fall short of describing the spectral characteristics of the Brillouin amplification and the lack of analytical expressions for Brillouin spectra substantially limits the utility of the hybrid solutions for applications in spectral measurement techniques. In this thesis, a highly accurate, fully analytic solution for the pump wave and the Stokes wave in Brillouin amplification in optical fibers is given. It is experimentally confirmed that the reported analytic solution can account for spectral distortion and pump depletion in the parameter space that is relevant to Brillouin fiber sensor applications. The analytic solution provides a valid characterization of Brillouin amplification in both the low and high nonlinearity regime, for short fiber lengths. Additionally, a 3D parametric model of Brillouin amplification is proposed, which reflects the effects of input pump and Stokes powers on the level of pump wave depletion in the fiber, and acts as a classification tool to describe the level of similarity between various Brillouin amplification processes in optical fibers. At present, there exists a multitude of electro-optic modulators (EOM), which are used to modulate the amplitude, frequency, phase and polarization of a beam of light. Among these modulators, phase modulation provides the highest quality of transmitted signal. As such, an improved method of phase-modulation, based on the principles of stimulated Brillouin scattering, as well as an optical phase-modulator and optical phase network employing the same, has been developed. Due to its robustness, low threshold power, narrow spectrum and simplicity of operation, stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) has become a favourable underlying mechanism in fiber-based devices used for both sensing and telecommunication applications. Since birefringence is a detrimental effect for both, it is important to devise a comprehensive characterization of the SBS process in the presence of birefringence in an optical fiber. In this thesis, the most general model of elliptical birefringence in an optical fiber has been developed for a steady-state and transient stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) interaction, as well as the combined Brillouin gain and loss regime. The impact of the elliptical birefringence is to induce a Brillouin frequency shift and distort the Brillouin spectrum – which varies with different light polarizations and pulse widths. The model investigates the effects of birefringence and the corresponding evolution of spectral distortion effects along the fiber, and proposes regimes that are more favourable for sensing applications related to SBS – providing a valuable prediction tool for distributed sensing applications. In recent years, photonic computing has received considerable attention due to its numerous applications, such as high-speed optical signal processing, which would yield much faster computing times and higher bandwidths. For this reason, optical logic has been the focus of many research efforts and several schemes to improve conventional logic gates have been proposed. In view of this, a combined Brillouin gain and loss process has been proposed in a polarization maintaining optical fiber to realize all-Optical NAND/NOT/AND/OR logic gates in the frequency domain. A model describing the interaction of a Stokes, anti-Stokes and a pump wave, and two acoustic waves inside a fiber, ranging in length from 350m-2300m, was used to theoretically model the gates. Through the optimization of the pump depletion and gain saturation in the combined gain and loss process, switching contrasts of 20-83% have been simulated for different configurations.

In a distributed Brillouin sensor system, it is crucial to keep the pulse energy uniform for constant signal to noise ratio. This means that the variable DC leakage (pulse base) through the electro-optic modulator must be locked. In this thesis I examine two different methods of locking the pulse base level and look at the advantages and disadvantages of each locking method. It is found that the two locking methods, one based on a lock-in amplifier and the other using proportional-integral-derivative control, both have applications in which they excel at locking the pulse base. Also, a technique to simultaneously lock the pulse base, top, and width is developed and tested. In the field of structural health monitoring, it is often advantageous to monitor the dynamic behaviour of a structure in real-time. The traditional distributed Brillouin sensor does not allow for this dynamic measurement due to the need to sweep the frequency difference between the two lasers and subsequent averaging of waveforms. For the first time to our knowledge, a real-time vibration sensor based on polarization-state perturbations in stimulated Brillouin scattering instead of resonant frequency mismatching monitoring of the Brillouin spectrum has been proposed. The long measurement time of traditional distributed Brillouin sensors is avoided by eliminating the frequency sweep of the pump and Stokes lasers and instead locking them at a single beat frequency corresponding to the static strain of the structure in which the fiber is embedded. This unique sensor allows measurement of vibration frequencies along a sensing fiber as shown in laboratory experiments and also the detection of impact waves from passing vehicles in field tests in which the sensor was embedded in the concrete pavement of a highway. A 20 ns pulse width with potential spatial resolution of 2 m was used over a sensing length of 300 m. Also, studies of the Brillouin linewidth under cw pump and Stokes waves are done in order to confirm the validity of a new definition of the threshold power in Brillouin fiber amplifiers which involve both input pump and input Stokes waves - all previous threshold definitions took into account only the input pump power. Finally, some interesting lineshape characteristics such as spectral hole burning and side-lobes on the Brillouin spectrum are observed for high power 2 ns Stokes pulses and their origins explained qualitatively. The evolution of these features with increasing pump power is investigated. The effect of laser linewidth and fiber length on these features is also considered.

A fibre optic frequency shifter has been developed which generates a heterodyne frequency that is used to facilitate electronic demodulation of optical information. The operation of this device is analogous to an acoustooptic device such as a Bragg cell. This frequency shifter works on the principle of mixing two stimulated Brillouin scattering signals (generated in optical fibre ring resonators) which have slightly different frequencies. Dual ring resonator and single ring resonator topologies have been used. For the former system a conversion efficiency of 16% was obtained. The beat frequency was tunable between 218.4 MHz and 414.6 MHz for a 40'C change in temperature. A temperature coefficient of 5+0.2 MHzK-1 was measured. The later configuration provides a highly stable carrier frequency (11MHz) with a temperature coefficient of 6.7+0-5 kHzK-1. A 20% conversion efficiency was obtained. This demonstrates that this technique offers a practical, fibre efficient, low optical power requirement method for producing a frequency shifter. One of the main advantages of the system is that no electrical power is required to produce the travelling acoustic wave. A novel technique to characterize the frequency response of optical detectoramplifier combinations, used in this project to detect these high frequencies, is also demonstrated. The technique is based on the wavelength modulation of a laser diode source in a path length imbalanced two-beam interferometer. A robust configuration using a low finesse Fabry-Perot interferometer made from birefringent optical fibre has been implemented. Measurements for several detector circuits are presented for the frequency range DC to about 30 MHz. Results are compared with direct modulation of the laser intensity and also with a circuit simulation programme (PSpice) and found to be in close agreement.

This dissertation describes the work conducted on error analysis for Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (BOTDR), a distributed strain sensing technology used for monitoring the structural performance of infrastructures. Although BOTDR has been recently applied to many infrastructure monitoring applications, its measurement error has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The challenge to accurately monitor structures using BOTDR sensors lies in the fact that the measurement error is dependent on the noise and the spatial resolution of the sensor as well as the non-uniformity of the monitored infrastructure strain conditions. To improve the reliability of this technology, measurement errors (including precision error and systematic error) need to be carefully investigated through fundamental analysis, lab testing, numerical modelling, and real site monitoring verification. The relationship between measurement error and sensor characteristics is firstly studied experimentally and theoretically. In the lab, different types of sensing cables are compared with regard to their measurement errors. Influences of factors including fibre diameters, polarization and cable jacket on measurement error are characterized. Based on experimental characterization results, an optics model is constructed to simulate the Brillouin back scattering process. The basic principle behind this model is the convolution between the injected pulse and the intrinsic Brillouin spectrum. Using this model, parametric studies are conducted to theoretically investigate the impacts of noise, frequency step and spectrum bandwidth on final strain measurement error. The measurement precision and systematic error are then investigated numerically and experimentally. Measurement results of field sites with installed optical fibres displayed that a more complicated strain profile leads to a larger measurement error. Through extensive experimental and numerical verifications using a Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (BOTDR), the dependence of precision error and systematic error on input strain were then characterized in the laboratory and the results indicated that a) the measurement precision error can be predicted using analyzer frequency resolution and the location determination error and b) the characteristics of the measurement systematic error can be described using the error to strain gradient curve. This is significant because for current data interpretation process, data quality is supposed to be constant along the fibre although the monitored strain for most of the site cases is non-uniformly distributed, which is verified in this thesis leading to a varying data quality. A novel data quality quantification method is therefore proposed as a function of the measured strain shape. Although BOTDR has been extensively applied in infrastructure monitoring in the past decade, their data interpretation has been proven to be nontrivial, due to the nature of field monitoring. Based on the measurement precision and systematic error characterization results, a novel data interpretation methodology is constructed using the regularization decomposing method, taking advantages of the measured data quality. Experimental results indicate that this algorithm can be applied to various strain shapes and levels, and the accuracy of the reconstructed strain can be greatly improved. The developed algorithm is finally applied to real site applications where BOTDR sensing cables were implemented in two load bearing piles to monitor the construction loading and ground heaving processes.