Tunable optoelectronic oscillator working in the Ku band

An improved tunable optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) based on a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator embedded with a sub-MZ modulator is designed and experimentally demonstrated for Ku band applications. Single-mode oscillator operation is achieved with a single feedback loop and without any electrical filters, which improves the tunability of the proposed OEO. The microwave power expression at the output of photodetector is developed using the well-known Taylor series expansion method to calculate the electrical spectrum and accumulated dispersion (ps nm^-1) of the dispersive element (linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating). Phase noise is also examined, which allows us to conclude that our proposed oscillator is suitable for optical wireless communication, radar and phase array antenna applications. Furthermore, its application as a strain and temperature sensor is investigated and it is found to have maximum strain sensitivity (K _ϵ) of 58.75 MHz μϵ ^-1 and temperature sensitivity (K _T) of 1.752 GHz °C^-1.