Abstract

Light propagation in fibers is perturbed by scattering of photons with acoustical phonons, known as spontaneous Brillouin scattering. Above a certain threshold, there is stimulated Brillouin scattering, resulting in a high conversion of intensity into a backward travelling Stokes wave. This backscattered wave is deeply and irregularly modulated. Structure and statistics of this backscattered light have been reported to depend strongly on the amount of feedback present due to, e.g., a Fresnel back reflection from the fiber end.^[1,2]

© 1992 IQEC