Frequency comb generation in quadratic nonlinear media

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate and theoretically explain the onset of optical frequency combs in a simple cavity-enhanced second-harmonic-generation system, exploiting second-order nonlinear interactions. Two combs are simultaneously generated around the fundamental pump frequency, with a spectral bandwidth up to about 10 nm, and its second harmonic. We observe different regimes of generation, depending on the phase-matching condition for second-harmonic-generation. Moreover, we develop an elemental model which provides a deep physical insight into the observed dynamics. Despite the different underlying physical mechanism, the proposed model is remarkably similar to the description of third-order effects in microresonators, revealing a potential variety of new effects to be explored and laying the groundwork for a novel class of highly efficient and versatile frequency comb synthesizers based on second-order nonlinear materials.

25 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (3)

• CMOS-compatible, multiplexed source of heralded photon pairs: towards integrated quantum combs
• Optical combs with a crystalline whispering gallery mode resonator
• Photonic Integrated Devices for Nonlinear Optics

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Quadratic Soliton Combs in Doubly-Resonant Second-Harmonic Generation
• Optical frequency combs in quadratically nonlinear resonators
• Gain-through-filtering enables tuneable frequency comb generation in passive optical resonators
• Soliton trapping and comb self-referencing in a single microresonator with ${\chi }^{(2)}$ and ${\chi }^{(3)}$ nonlinearities
• Coupled-mode theory for microresonators with quadratic nonlinearity
• Two-color flat-top solitons in microresonator-based optical parametric oscillators
• Two-color flat-top solitonic pulses in ${\chi }^{(2)}$ optical microresonators via second harmonic generation