Distributed Temperature Sensing in Polymer Optical Fiber by BOFDA

Distributed temperature measurements in a perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber (POF) with 50-mu m core diameter are reported for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. Brillouin optical frequency-domain analysis is shown to be able to resolve spatially the temperature-dependent Brillouin frequency shift profile along a 20-m POF fiber sample, at a nominal spatial resolution of 4 m. The results indicate that POFs are potentially useful for distributed temperature measurements based on stimulated Brillouin scattering.