Equivalent Self-Noise Suppression of DAS System Integrated with Multi-Core Fiber Based on Phase Matching Scheme

Multi-core fiber (MCF) has drawn increasing attention for its potential application in distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) due to the compact optical structure of integrating several fiber cores in the same cladding, which indicates an intrinsic space-division-multiplexed (SDM) capability in a single piece of fiber. In this paper, a dual-channel DAS integrated with MCF is presented, of which the equivalent self-noise characteristic is analyzed. The equivalent self-noise of the system can be effectively suppressed by signal superposition with the phase matching method. Considering that the noise correlation among the cores is not zero, the signal-to-noise (SNR) gain after signal superposition is less than the theoretical value. The dual-channel DAS system is set up by a piece of 2 km long seven-core MCF, in which the dual-sensing channels are constructed by a four-core series and three-core series, respectively. The total noise correlation coefficient of the seven cores is 11.28, while the equivalent self-noise of the system can be suppressed by 6.32 dB with signal superposition. An equivalent self-noise suppression method based on a linear delay phase matching scheme is proposed for noise decorrelation in the DAS MCF system. After noise decorrelation, the suppression of the equivalent self-noise of the system can reach the theoretical value of 8.45 dB with a time delay of 1 ms, indicating a noise correlation among the seven cores of almost zero. The feasibility of the equivalent self-noise suppression method for the DAS system is verified for both single-frequency and broadband signals, which is of great significance for the detection of weak vibration signals based on a DAS system.