Abstract

Real-time and high-speed interrogation of optical fiber sensors normally requires sophisticated detection systems. Here a novel microwave photonic approach for interrogation of high-speed and high-resolution optical fiber sensors based on optical injection in a semiconductor laser and simple passive microwave frequency filtering is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An intensity-modulated master laser is injected into a semiconductor laser to produce a wavelength scanning optical sideband. A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor is embedded into a fiber ring laser. Beating of the scanning optical sideband and the fiber ring laser wavelength at a photodetector generates a linearly frequency-chirped microwave signal. The real-time wavelength shift of the FBG sensor is converted into the change of the microwave center frequency. After a simple passive microwave bandpass filter, two electrical pulses are obtained corresponding to positive and negative frequency sweeping. The FBG wavelength can be retrieved from the time interval of the two pulses. A proof-of-concept experiment to measure an FBG strain sensor has been carried out. A high interrogation speed of 1 MHz and measurement sensitivity of 17.3 ns/με have been achieved.

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