Optical Frequency Comb Generation via Cascaded Intensity and Phase Photonic Crystal Modulators

Abstract

Nanophotonics, driven by low processing power and high density integration, is appearing as the next logical step for microwave photonics. Optical frequency combs (OFCs), which play a vital role in integrated microwave photonics, have not yet generated using nano-structured devices. In this paper, we propose OFC generation based on all-optical modulation of nanophotonic structures. A theoretical model based on temporal coupled mode theory is developed to describe cascaded alloptical photonic crystal intensity and phase modulators. Using a modulation light with a sinusoidal waveform, a separate carrier light is modulated to generate an OFC. By manipulating the modulation power and device dimensions, a flat OFC that spans over a 600GHz is delivered. The proposed system offers OFC generation with tunable comb line spacing using devices with high density integration capabilities.

Inverse design of programmable optical frequency comb using deep learning

“…The fixed parameters limit the solution domain and make it difficult to obtain a global optimal result with extreme inefficiency. Furthermore, in the OFC generation technology based on multiple radio frequency (RF) signals driving a single modulator [19] or cascaded modulators [20,21], it is more difficult for the control variate method to obtain an optimal solution with the increase of parameters number that can be designed. In addition, the existing OFC generation technologies still have the problem of lack of programmability, and the programmability of comb-line number is not flexible enough.…”

Optical-Frequency-Comb Generation Based on Single-Tone Modulation and Four-Wave Mixing Effect in One Single Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

“…The optical frequency comb (OFC), which is composed of a series of equally spaced discrete-frequency components with coherent stable-phase relationships, has always been a research hotspot due to its wide applications including optical precision measurement, optical communication, optical sensing, military, and so on [1][2][3][4]. At present, OFC-generation technologies are mainly based on mode-locked lasers [5], non-linear effects in non-linear media [6][7][8][9], optoelectronic oscillators [10], and electro-optical modulators [11]. Among them, OFCs based on non-linear effects in non-linear optical fibers [6], micro-resonators [7,8], and lithium niobate waveguides [9] have attracted extensive attention because of their advantages of a large number of comb lines and wide spectral range.…”