We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel Raman-based distributed fiber-optics temperature sensor (RDTS) for improving the temperature measurement accuracy and engineering applicability. The proposed method is based on double-ended demodulation with a reference temperature and dynamic dispersion difference compensation method, which can suppress the effect of local external physics perturbation and intermodal dispersion on temperature demodulation results. Moreover, the system can omit the pre-calibration process by using the reference temperature before the temperature measurement. The experimental results of dispersion compensation indicate that the temperature accuracy optimizes from 5.6°C to 1.2°C, and the temperature uncertainty decreases from 16.8°C to 2.4°C. Moreover, the double-ended configuration can automatically compensate the local external physics perturbation of the sensing fiber, which exhibits a distinctive improvement.

The scattering properties of ZnO nanospheres with four different particle diameters of 10, 50, 100, and 200 nm suspended in water are investigated theoretical and experimentally in the spectral range of the entire visible range and part of the near-infrared region. The scattering properties of ZnO nanospheres suspended in water are described by employing three main parameters: the angular distribution of the scattering intensity I, the scattering extinction coefficient αscat, and the scattering cross section σscat. The results indicate that (i) at a certain wavelength, the angular distribution of the scattering intensity appears as an obviously forward-propagating feature, and the forward-scattering intensity is dominant gradually when the particle diameter increases from 10 to 200 nm, and (ii) the scattering extinction coefficient and cross section can be determined by using the measured transmittance changes of a pure water sample and a given ZnO sample; they all are shown to be dependent on the particle size and incident wavelength. The experimental results of four different scattering samples agree well with the theoretical predictions within the given wavelength range.

Calibration of the relationship between the scattering angle and the CCD pixel is a key part of achieving accurate measurements of rainbow refractometry. A novel self-calibrated global rainbow refractometry system based on illumination by two lasers of different wavelengths is proposed. The angular calibration and refractive index measurement of two wavelengths can be completed simultaneously without extra measurement devices. The numerical and experimental results show the feasibility and high precision of the self-calibration method, which enables the rainbow refractometry to be implemented in a more powerful and convenient way. The self-calibrated rainbow system is successfully applied to measure the refractive indices of ethanol-water solutions with volume concentrations of 10% to 60%.

To obtain high spatial resolution over a long sensing distance in Brillouin optical correlation domain reflectometry (BOCDR), a broad laser spectrum and high pump power are used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this Letter, we use a noise-modulated laser to study the variation of the Brillouin spectrum bandwidth and its impact on the coherent length of BOCDR quantitatively. The result shows that the best spatial resolution (lowest coherent length) is achieved by the lowest pump power with the highest noise-modulation spectrum. Temperature-induced changes in the Brillouin frequency shift along a 253.1 m fiber are demonstrated with a 19 cm spatial resolution.

In order to improve the inversion precision of aerosol mass concentrations based on the particle group light scattering method, the concept that particles through a laser beam are equivalent to an aggregate is proposed. A fractal model for aerosol mass concentration using the signal amplitude distribution of aggregates is presented, and then the subsection calibration method is given. The experimental results show that the mass concentrations inversed by this model agree well with those measured by the norm-referenced instrument. The average relative errors of the two experiments are 5.6% and 6.0%, respectively, which are less than those obtained by the conventional inversion model.

We propose and demonstrate a scheme to measure the distribution of temperature along an optical fiber based on pseudo-random sequence modulation. In our experimental work, current modulation with a pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) is applied to a laser diode that serves as the Brillouin pump light and reference light. Because of the independence of the spatial resolution on the PRBS length, the measurement range can be extended while maintaining high spatial resolution using a long PRBS length. Temperature-induced changes in a Brillouin frequency shift of 250 m fiber sections are clearly observed with 54 cm spatial resolution by this method.