Improving the Sensitivity of the Sensing Interrogation System Based on an Optoelectronic Oscillator Incorporating a Dual-Passband Microwave Photonic Filter

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a sensitivity-enhanced sensing interrogation scheme based on an Optoelectronic oscillator (OEO), in which a switchable dual-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) is introduced into the loop. The switchable dual-passband MPF is a combination of a modified fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer (FMZI), an electro-optical modulator (EOM), a roll of dispersion compensating fiber (DCF), and a photodetector (PD). The dual-passband switching of the MPF can be achieved by simply adjusting the polarization state via rotating a polarization controller (PC) in the FMZI. The sensitivity can be improved by a factor of two by tracking the frequency corresponding to the central frequency of the high-frequency passband relative to the low-frequency passband. Temperature-sensing experiments were conducted to verify the concept of enhanced sensitivity. Experimental results on temperature sensing show that tracking low- and high-frequency OEO signals yields sensitivities of 5.23 MHz/°C and 10.84 MHz/°C, respectively, and temperature resolutions of 0.009 °C and 0.004 °C, thereby increasing sensitivity and resolution.