Integrated optical frequency division for microwave and mmWave generation
Shuman Sun, Beichen Wang, Kaikai Liu, Mark Harrington, Fatemehsadat Tabatabaei, Ruxuan Liu, Jiawei Wang, Samin Hanifi, Jesse Morgan, Mandana Jahanbozorgi, Zijiao Yang, Steven M. Bowers, Paul A. Morton, Karl D. Nelson, Andréas Beling, Daniel J. Blumenthal, Xu Yi
Abstract
Abstract The generation of ultra-low-noise microwave and mmWave in miniaturized, chip-based platforms can transform communication, radar and sensing systems 1–3 . Optical frequency division that leverages optical references and optical frequency combs has emerged as a powerful technique to generate microwaves with superior spectral purity than any other approaches 4–7 . Here we demonstrate a miniaturized optical frequency division system that can potentially transfer the approach to a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor-compatible integrated photonic platform. Phase stability is provided by a large mode volume, planar-waveguide-based optical reference coil cavity 8,9 and is divided down from optical to mmWave frequency by using soliton microcombs generated in a waveguide-coupled microresonator 10–12 . Besides achieving record-low phase noise for integrated photonic mmWave oscillators, these devices can be heterogeneously integrated with semiconductor lasers, amplifiers and photodiodes, holding the potential of large-volume, low-cost manufacturing for fundamental and mass-market applications 13 .