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Broadband electro-optic frequency comb generation in a lithium niobate microring resonator

Author

Listed:
  • Mian Zhang

    (Harvard University
    HyperLight Corporation)

  • Brandon Buscaino

    (Stanford University)

  • Cheng Wang

    (Harvard University
    City University of Hong Kong)

  • Amirhassan Shams-Ansari

    (Harvard University
    Howard University)

  • Christian Reimer

    (Harvard University
    HyperLight Corporation)

  • Rongrong Zhu

    (Harvard University
    The Electromagnetics Academy at Zhejiang University, College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University)

  • Joseph M. Kahn

    (Stanford University)

  • Marko Lončar

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Optical frequency combs consist of equally spaced discrete optical frequency components and are essential tools for optical communication, precision metrology, timing and spectroscopy1–9. At present, combs with wide spectra are usually generated by mode-locked lasers10 or dispersion-engineered resonators with third-order Kerr nonlinearity11. An alternative method of comb production uses electro-optic (EO) phase modulation in a resonator with strong second-order nonlinearity, resulting in combs with excellent stability and controllability12–14. Previous EO combs, however, have been limited to narrow widths by a weak EO interaction strength and a lack of dispersion engineering in free-space systems. Here we overcome these limitations by realizing an integrated EO comb generator in a thin-film lithium niobate photonic platform that features a large EO response, ultralow optical loss and highly co-localized microwave and optical fields15, while enabling dispersion engineering. Our measured EO comb spans more frequencies than the entire telecommunications L-band (over 900 comb lines spaced about 10 gigahertz apart), and we show that future dispersion engineering can enable octave-spanning combs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the high tolerance of our comb generator to modulation frequency detuning, with frequency spacing finely controllable over seven orders of magnitude (10 hertz to 100 megahertz), and we use this feature to generate dual-frequency combs in a single resonator. Our results show that integrated EO comb generators are capable of generating wide and stable comb spectra. Their excellent reconfigurability is a powerful complement to integrated Kerr combs, enabling applications ranging from spectroscopy16 to optical communications8.

Suggested Citation

  • Mian Zhang & Brandon Buscaino & Cheng Wang & Amirhassan Shams-Ansari & Christian Reimer & Rongrong Zhu & Joseph M. Kahn & Marko Lončar, 2019. "Broadband electro-optic frequency comb generation in a lithium niobate microring resonator," Nature, Nature, vol. 568(7752), pages 373-377, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:568:y:2019:i:7752:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1008-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1008-7
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Chenbo Zhang & Yixiao Zhu & Jingjing Lin & Bibo He & Rongwei Liu & Yicheng Xu & Nuo Chen & Xuanjian He & Jinming Tao & Zhike Zhang & Tao Chu & Lilin Yi & Qunbi Zhuge & Weiwei Hu & Zhangyuan Chen & Wei, 2024. "High-fidelity sub-petabit-per-second self-homodyne fronthaul using broadband electro-optic combs," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. I-Tung Chen & Bingzhao Li & Seokhyeong Lee & Srivatsa Chakravarthi & Kai-Mei Fu & Mo Li, 2023. "Optomechanical ring resonator for efficient microwave-optical frequency conversion," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Yang He & Raymond Lopez-Rios & Usman A. Javid & Jingwei Ling & Mingxiao Li & Shixin Xue & Kerry Vahala & Qiang Lin, 2023. "High-speed tunable microwave-rate soliton microcomb," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    4. Anton Lukashchuk & Johann Riemensberger & Maxim Karpov & Junqiu Liu & Tobias J. Kippenberg, 2022. "Dual chirped microcomb based parallel ranging at megapixel-line rates," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Geng-Bo Wu & Jun Yan Dai & Kam Man Shum & Ka Fai Chan & Qiang Cheng & Tie Jun Cui & Chi Hou Chan, 2024. "A synthetic moving-envelope metasurface antenna for independent control of arbitrary harmonic orders," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Zihan Li & Rui Ning Wang & Grigory Lihachev & Junyin Zhang & Zelin Tan & Mikhail Churaev & Nikolai Kuznetsov & Anat Siddharth & Mohammad J. Bereyhi & Johann Riemensberger & Tobias J. Kippenberg, 2023. "High density lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    7. Arkadev Roy & Luis Ledezma & Luis Costa & Robert Gray & Ryoto Sekine & Qiushi Guo & Mingchen Liu & Ryan M. Briggs & Alireza Marandi, 2023. "Visible-to-mid-IR tunable frequency comb in nanophotonics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    8. Mikhail Churaev & Rui Ning Wang & Annina Riedhauser & Viacheslav Snigirev & Terence Blésin & Charles Möhl & Miles H. Anderson & Anat Siddharth & Youri Popoff & Ute Drechsler & Daniele Caimi & Simon Hö, 2023. "A heterogeneously integrated lithium niobate-on-silicon nitride photonic platform," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Timothy P. McKenna & Hubert S. Stokowski & Vahid Ansari & Jatadhari Mishra & Marc Jankowski & Christopher J. Sarabalis & Jason F. Herrmann & Carsten Langrock & Martin M. Fejer & Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, 2022. "Ultra-low-power second-order nonlinear optics on a chip," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    10. Giovanni Finco & Gaoyuan Li & David Pohl & Marc Reig Escalé & Andreas Maeder & Fabian Kaufmann & Rachel Grange, 2024. "Monolithic thin-film lithium niobate broadband spectrometer with one nanometre resolution," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    11. Avik Dutt & Luqi Yuan & Ki Youl Yang & Kai Wang & Siddharth Buddhiraju & Jelena Vučković & Shanhui Fan, 2022. "Creating boundaries along a synthetic frequency dimension," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    12. Ki Youl Yang & Chinmay Shirpurkar & Alexander D. White & Jizhao Zang & Lin Chang & Farshid Ashtiani & Melissa A. Guidry & Daniil M. Lukin & Srinivas V. Pericherla & Joshua Yang & Hyounghan Kwon & Jess, 2022. "Multi-dimensional data transmission using inverse-designed silicon photonics and microcombs," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    13. Hubert S. Stokowski & Timothy P. McKenna & Taewon Park & Alexander Y. Hwang & Devin J. Dean & Oguz Tolga Celik & Vahid Ansari & Martin M. Fejer & Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, 2023. "Integrated quantum optical phase sensor in thin film lithium niobate," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    14. Shahab Abdollahi & Mathieu Ladouce & Pablo Marin-Palomo & Martin Virte, 2024. "Agile THz-range spectral multiplication of frequency combs using a multi-wavelength laser," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    15. Hussein M. E. Hussein & Seunghwi Kim & Matteo Rinaldi & Andrea Alù & Cristian Cassella, 2024. "Passive frequency comb generation at radiofrequency for ranging applications," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.

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