GAWBS phase noise characteristics in multi-core fibers for digital coherent transmission.

We describe the guided acoustic-wave Brillouin scattering (GAWBS) phase noise characteristics in multi-core fibers (MCFs) used for a digital coherent optical fiber transmission both experimentally and analytically. We first describe the GAWBS phase noise in an uncoupled four-core fiber with a 125 µm cladding and compare the phase noise spectrum with that of a standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). We found that, unlike SSMF where the R mode is dominant, off-center cores in MCF are affected by higher-order TRn modes. We then report measurement results for GAWBS phase noise in a 19-core fiber with a 240 µm cladding. The results indicate that the cores exhibit different spectral profiles depending on their distance from the center of the fiber, but the amount of phase noise generated in each core is almost identical. These results provide a useful insight into the space division multiplexing transmission impairments in digital coherent transmissions using MCF.