Invited Conference in Stanford Geophysics

Miguel González Herráez

Professor of Electronics and Photonics at the University of Alcala - “Unconventional DAS”

Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2024                                                                                               

Time: 9:00-9:50am PST Location: Mitchell Building-Room B04.  Zoom: http://tinyurl.com/yv8w9pye Password: 750899

Miguel Gonzalez-Herraez is currently a Professor of Electronics and Photonics at the University of Alcala (Spain). He is a frequent invited/plenary speaker in meetings organized by Optica (formerly Optical Society of America) or IEEE. A substantial amount of his IP is now in DAS and DTS machines commercialized by different manufacturers such as Omnisens (now part of Prysmian Electronics) and Aragon Photonics. He has received several important recognitions to his basic research activity and technology transfer contributions in this area, including the European Research Council Starting Grant, the “Miguel Catalan” Prize given by the Regional Government of Madrid, and the “Agustin de Betancourt” prize of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering. GS profile: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=c6SIO8sAAAAJ&hl=en

DAS systems have become a common tool in Geophysics and Seismology. Most DAS users are generally aware of the basic principles of the technique and the usual performances of commercially available interrogators. However, there is a general lack of understanding of what are the attainable performance limits of the technology underlying DAS systems. In this talk, I will go over the basic principles and I will provide insights into the origins of the physical limits of conventional technology. By understanding the limits, and the ways to overcome them, I will explain a couple of systems under development in my lab that provide very different performances when compared to a conventional DAS. On one hand, I will introduce a DAS system that reaches cm-scale gauge lengths over distances of ~1km. On the other hand, I will introduce a DAS system with conventional performances (meter scale resolutions over tens of km) but completely suppressed 1/f instrumental noise, which is in principle suitable for very long-term monitoring (e.g. processes with periods of days, weeks or even months).”