This paper proposes a novel fibre structure aiming at distributed temperature and strain sensing. Utilizing Al2O3 and CeO2 as dopants to form a w-shaped acoustic waveguide, it realizes modal coupling between longitudinal acoustic modes of its inner and outer core layers, leading to a dual-peak or multi-peak Brillouin gain spectrum. The relationship between the acoustic mode coupling properties and the fibre materials, doping concentrations and structural parameters are investigated, showing that the positions of mode coupling points in acoustic dispersion curves and the coupling intensities can be designed flexibly. A specific fibre design for the discriminative sensing of temperature and strain under a pump wavelength of 1.55 μm is given. The responses of its Brillouin gain properties on temperature and strain are analysed theoretically, demonstrating its potential for distributed fibre Brillouin sensing.
