Sensitivity-improved fiber optic current sensor based on an optoelectronic oscillator utilizing a dispersion induced microwave photonic filter

An optoelectronic oscillator (OEO)-based fiber optic current sensor (FOCS) with greatly improved sensitivity is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A microwave photonic filter (MPF) induced by the dispersion effect of a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG) is used to select the frequency of the OEO oscillating signal. A two-tap MPF formed by a polarization multiplexed composite cavity is cascaded to achieve a stable single mode oscillation. When the current changes, the magneto-optic phase shift induced by Faraday effect will be introduced between the left and right circularly polarized lights transmitted in the reflective sensing unit. The magneto-optic phase shift is converted to the phase difference between the optical carrier and sidebands through a LiNbO3 Mach–Zehnder modulator. This phase difference is the decisive factor for the center frequency of the cascaded MPF as well as the oscillating frequency. Therefore, the current can be measured in the microwave frequency domain, which can improve the interrogation speed and accuracy to a large extent. The experimental results show that the oscillating frequency shifts up to 407.9 MHz as the current increases by 1 A.