Full modal analysis of the Brillouin gain spectrum of an optical fiber

Abstract

We present a numerical study of stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers based on a full modal analysis of the acoustic and optical properties. The computation of each acoustic mode supported by the fiber structure allows us a deep and detailed investigation of the characteristics of the Brillouin gain spectrum. We focus our attention on optical fibers acting as acoustic antiwaveguides where the biggest contribution to the Brillouin response often comes from very high-order modes but it is sometimes overlooked because of computational issues. Our analysis clearly highlights their role and their dependence on the physical and geometrical structure of the fiber.