Optical linewidth of soliton microcombs

Abstract

Soliton microcombs provide a versatile platform for realizing fundamental studies and technological applications. To be utilized as frequency rulers for precision metrology, soliton microcombs must display broadband phase coherence, a parameter characterized by the optical phase or frequency noise of the comb lines and their corresponding optical linewidths. Here, we analyse the optical phase-noise dynamics in soliton microcombs generated in silicon nitride high-Q microresonators and show that, because of the Raman self-frequency shift or dispersive-wave recoil, the Lorentzian linewidth of some of the comb lines can, surprisingly, be narrower than that of the pump laser. This work elucidates information about the physical limits in phase coherence of soliton microcombs and illustrates a new strategy for the generation of spectrally coherent light on chip.

14 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Hertz-linewidth semiconductor lasers using CMOS-ready ultra-high-$Q$ microresonators
• Thermo-refractive noise in silicon nitride microresonators
• High-Q Si3N4 microresonators based on a subtractive processing for Kerr nonlinear optics
• Photonic flywheel in a monolithic fiber resonator
• Noise conversion in Kerr comb RF photonic oscillators
• Soliton repetition rate in a silicon-nitride microresonator
• Thermal control of Kerr microresonator soliton comb via an optical sideband
• Thermal noise reduction in soliton microcombs via laser self-cooling
• Spectral Noise Correlations of an Ultrafast Frequency Comb

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Spatiotemporal mode-locking and photonic flywheel in multimode microresonators
• Slice-Less Optical Arbitrary Waveform Measurement (OAWM) in a Bandwidth of More than 600 GHz Using Soliton Microcombs
• Self-injection-locked optical parametric oscillator based on microcombs
• All-Optical Noise Quenching of An Integrated Frequency Comb
• Broadband Cavity-Enhanced Kerr Comb Spectroscopy on Chip
• On-chip multi-timescale spatiotemporal optical synchronization
• Rhythmic soliton interactions for integrated dual-microcomb spectroscopy
• Architecture for coherent dual-comb spectroscopy and low-noise photonic microwave generation using mechanically actuated soliton microcombs
• Self-cooling, blue-detuned dissipative Kerr microresonator soliton comb
• Digital Signal Processing Techniques for Noise Characterization of Lasers and Optical Frequency Combs: A Tutorial
• On the Capacity of Correlated Phase-Noise Channels: An Electro-Optic Frequency Comb Example