Enhanced Optical Fiber for Distributed Acoustic Sensing beyond the Limits of Rayleigh Backscattering.

We report on engineered fibers with enhanced optical backscattering that exceeds Rayleigh scattering limits by more than one order of magnitude. We measure attenuation less than 0.5 dB/km from 1,300 to 1,650 nm. By controlling the enhanced backscatter over a 1.5-km length, we compensate for this attenuation, resulting in a higher backscatter signal at the end of the fiber. We demonstrate that the scattering strength may be stabilized for operation at temperatures above 200°C for at least 3 weeks. We show that the deleterious signal distortion due to the Kerr nonlinearity is within 10% of standard fiber. We then report on the use of these fibers in distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) measurements. A significant increase in acoustic signal-to-noise ratio leads to the possibility of improved spatial resolution in the enhanced fiber DAS system.

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Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Interests At the time this work was completed, the following authors were employed by OFS Fitel: P.S.W., K.S.F., T.K., E.M.M., H.W., B.Z., L.H., D.A.S., and S.S. At the time this work was completed the following authors were employed by Fotech Solutions Ltd: V.A.H., M.K., A.N., and A.Y. At present, the following author is employed by Legrand, North America: L.H. The following authors are listed as inventors on US Patent 9,766,396: P.S.W. and T.K. The following author is listed as an inventor on US Patent 9,304,017: V.A.H.