A Kerr-microresonator optical clockwork

Abstract

Kerr microresonators generate interesting and useful fundamental states of electromagnetic radiation through nonlinear interactions of continuous-wave (CW) laser light. Using photonic-integration techniques, functional devices with low noise, small size, low-power consumption, scalable fabrication, and heterogeneous combinations of photonics and electronics can be realized. Kerr solitons, which stably circulate in a Kerr microresonator, have emerged as a source of coherent, ultrafast pulse trains and ultra-broadband optical-frequency combs. Using the f-2f technique, Kerr combs support carrier-envelope-offset phase stabilization for optical synthesis and metrology. In this paper, we introduce a Kerr-microresonator optical clockwork based on optical-frequency division (OFD), which is a powerful technique to transfer the fractional-frequency stability of an optical clock to a lower frequency electronic clock signal. The clockwork presented here is based on a silicon-nitride (Si${}_3$N${}_4$) microresonator that supports an optical-frequency comb composed of soliton pulses at 1 THz repetition rate. By electro-optic phase modulation of the entire Si${}_3$N${}_4$ comb, we arbitrarily generate additional CW modes between the Si${}_3$N${}_4$ comb modes; operationally, this reduces the pulse train repetition frequency and can be used to implement OFD to the microwave domain. Our experiments characterize the residual frequency noise of this Kerr-microresonator clockwork to one part in $10^{17}$, which opens the possibility of using Kerr combs with high performance optical clocks. In addition, the photonic integration and 1 THz resolution of the Si${}_3$N${}_4$ frequency comb makes it appealing for broadband, low-resolution liquid-phase absorption spectroscopy, which we demonstrate with near infrared measurements of water, lipids, and organic solvents.

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• Dual-mode microresonators as straightforward access to octave-spanning dissipative Kerr solitons
• Switching dynamics of dark-pulse Kerr comb states in optical microresonators
• Kerr Microresonator Soliton Frequency Combs at Cryogenic Temperatures
• Harnessing Dispersion in Soliton Microcombs to Mitigate Thermal Noise
• Hybrid InP and SiN integration of an octave-spanning frequency comb
• Integrated Buried Heaters for Efficient Spectral Control of Air-Clad Microresonator Frequency Combs
• Submegahertz spectral width photon pair source based on fused silica microspheres
• Ultraprecise optical-frequency stabilization with heterogeneous III-V/Si lasers
• Vibrational Kerr solitons in an optomechanical microresonator
• Near octave-spanning perfect soliton crystals in AlN microresonators
• All-Optical Noise Quenching of An Integrated Frequency Comb
• Wavelength-division multiplexing communications using integrated soliton microcomb laser source
• On-Chip Parametric Synchronization of a Dissipative Kerr Soliton Microcomb
• Coherent terahertz-to-microwave link using electro-optic-modulated Turing rolls
• Investigating the $4D_{3/2}|3,\pm 2⟩$--$4D_{5/2}|3,\pm 2⟩$ transition in Nb${}^{4+}$ for a THz atomic clock