Phonon Lifetime Measurement by Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Slow Light Technique in Optical Fiber

Phonon lifetime is a significant parameter in the process of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). In the present study, SBS slow light technique is used to measure phonon lifetime. Brillouin bandwidth is divided into natural, spontaneous and stimulated bandwidth. Compared with the traditional heterodyne-detection and pump-probe techniques, the natural Brillouin bandwidth can be obtained by SBS slow light technique, which equals the reciprocal of phonon lifetime and has no relations with the pump power. Another advantage of this technique is that the effect of polarization can be excluded. The natural Brillouin bandwidth is measured to be ～50 MHz and the phonon lifetime ～3.2 ns in the conventional single-mode fiber (SMF) at room temperature and zero strain. The obtained results are guidable in applications where the phonon lifetime information is a requisite such as phase conjugation and pulse compression.