Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with a single chip source

Abstract

Micro-combs-optical frequency combs generated by integrated micro-cavity resonatorsoffer the full potential of their bulk counterparts, but in an integrated footprint. They have enabled breakthroughs in many fields including spectroscopy, microwave photonics, frequency synthesis, optical ranging, quantum sources, metrology and ultrahigh capacity data transmission. Here, by using a powerful class of micro-comb called soliton crystals, we achieve ultra-high data transmission over 75 km of standard optical fibre using a single integrated chip source. We demonstrate a line rate of 44.2 Terabits s −1 using the telecommunications C-band at 1550 nm with a spectral efficiency of 10.4 bits s −1 Hz −1. Soliton crystals exhibit robust and stable generation and operation as well as a high intrinsic efficiency that, together with an extremely low soliton micro-comb spacing of 48.9 GHz enable the use of a very high coherent data modulation format (64 QAM-quadrature amplitude modulated). This work demonstrates the capability of optical micro-combs to perform in demanding and practical optical communications networks.

RF Photonic Signal Processing with Kerr Micro-Combs: Integration, Fractional Differentiation and Hilbert Transforms

“…Using tailored dispersion, micro-combs with ultra-wideband bandwidths -even octavespanning, [71] can be achieved, enabling a very large number of wavelengths using only a single integrated source, to work in conjunction with broadband opto-electronic equipment. This approach enables significantly enhanced wavelength-division parallelism for massive data transmission and processing [62][63][64] for many applications including radio-over-fibre systems, for example.…”

“…While this can require spectral flattening, it has not prevented them from achieving many high performance microwave and RF functions. Soliton crystals are based on a mode-crossing in the resonator and so this needs to be engineered, as well as anomalous dispersion, but this has not posed a significant difficulty and high fabrication yield is achievable [64].…”

“…from innovative mode-locked lasers [49][50][51][52] to quantum optical photonic chips [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61], ultrahigh bandwidth optical fiber data transmission [62][63][64], optical neural networks [65][66][67], integrated optical frequency synthesizers [68]. Microcombs have been extensively reviewed [47, 69 -76].…”

RF and microwave photonic high bandwidth signal processing based on Kerr micro-comb sources

“…Many cutting-RF and microwave photonic high bandwidth signal processing based on Kerr micro-comb sources Mengxi Tan, 1 Xingyuan Xu, 1,* Jiayang Wu, 1 Roberto Morandotti, 2 Arnan Mitchell, 3 and David J. Moss 1 edge applications have been demonstrated based on CMOS-compatible micro-combs, ranging from filter-driven modelocked lasers [49][50][51][52] to quantum physics [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. Most recently, Kerr micro-combs have demonstrated their enormous potential as sources for ultrahigh bandwidth coherent optical fiber communications [62][63][64], optical neural networks [65][66][67], optical frequency synthesis [68], and have been reviewed extensively [47, 69 -76]. The success of these new CMOS platforms as well as other CMOS platforms such as amorphous silicon [77] and silicon rich silicon nitride (SRSN) [78] arises from a combination of their low linear loss, moderate to high nonlinearity and low or even negligible nonlinear loss (TPA).…”

Orthogonally polarized RF single sideband generation with Kerr microcombs

“…Its main applications lie in the areas of radar, communications and sensing. Many different capabilities have been achieved, such as advanced encoding format modulators [5][6][7][8][9][10], devices for RF beam shaping [11], RF signal processors based on transverse filtering [12][13][14], RF channelizers [15] and spectrum analysis [16][17][18], and much more [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38].…”