Frequency combs articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a laser system that can directly output soliton microcombs, with high power efficiency and reconfigurability, paving the way for communication, computing, and metrology based on integrated photonics.

    • Jingwei Ling
    • , Zhengdong Gao
    •  & Qiang Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a strong interaction between the generated solitons and background light in a Brillouin-Kerr microcomb system. Based on this unique physical mechanism, they achieve a monostable single soliton microcomb and a turnkey single-soliton microcomb without employing any optical/electrical control or feedback.

    • Menghua Zhang
    • , Shulin Ding
    •  & Xiaoshun Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Astrocombs serve as precision calibrators for astrophysical spectrographs by providing a regular sequence of optical lines on a multi-GHz grid. Here, the authors report the first broadband astrocomb in the UV to blue-green spectral region, where stellar absorption lines are most abundant.

    • Yuk Shan Cheng
    • , Kamalesh Dadi
    •  & Derryck T. Reid

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a universal approach to achieve turnkey dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) frequency comb. Phase insensitivity, self-healing capability, deterministic selection of DKS state, and access to ultralow noise are all successfully accomplished.

    • Mingming Nie
    • , Jonathan Musgrave
    •  & Shu-Wei Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors introduce an agile, all-fiber laser source with three frequency combs. Three EOM combs from a single laser are expanded in a tri-core nonlinear fiber, maintaining high mutual coherence. This system’s performance is showcased through a 2D four-wave mixing spectroscopy experiment.

    • Eve-Line Bancel
    • , Etienne Genier
    •  & Arnaud Mussot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors provide the experimental demonstration of a widely tunable integrated frequency comb source unlocking the spectrum from the visible to the mid-infrared in a thin-film lithium niobate platform.

    • Arkadev Roy
    • , Luis Ledezma
    •  & Alireza Marandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic, electronic and lattice resonances in patterned semiconductor microcavities are tailored to demonstrate coherent bidirectional microwave-to-optical conversion via phonon-exciton-photon quasi-particles in the strong-coupling regime.

    • Alexander Sergeevich Kuznetsov
    • , Klaus Biermann
    •  & Paulo Ventura Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Boosting conversion efficiency, coherence and spectral bandwidth of optical signals generated in integrated photonic devices is an important current challenge. Here, the authors present their observations of two-colour dissipative solitons, breathers and frequency combs resulting from second-harmonic generation in lithium-niobate ring microresonators.

    • Juanjuan Lu
    • , Danila N. Puzyrev
    •  & Hong X. Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electro-optic modulators can be useful for imaging, sensing and information processing applications. Here the authors demonstrate an ultra-low drive voltage visible to near infrared range electro-optic modulator in the form of amplitude and phase modulation using thin-film lithium niobate.

    • Dylan Renaud
    • , Daniel Rimoli Assumpcao
    •  & Marko Loncar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors introduce and demonstrate cross-comb spectroscopy in the mid-infrared as a variant of dual-comb spectroscopy. It provides enhanced performance and allows mid-infrared spectral information to be obtained by near-infrared detection.

    • Mingchen Liu
    • , Robert M. Gray
    •  & Alireza Marandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present a photonic scheme for terahertz synthesis using an optical frequency comb in stabilization to an ultra-low expansion optical cavity, achieving an unprecedented level of frequency instability of 10−15 at 1-s integration over the tunable range of 0.1–1.1 THz.

    • Dong-Chel Shin
    • , Byung Soo Kim
    •  & Seung-Woo Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microcombs are vulnerable to the environmental perturbations. Here, the authors propose a universal mechanism to fully control the microcombs. Based this reconfigurable microsoliton, a wavemeter with a precision of kHz is demonstrated.

    • Rui Niu
    • , Ming Li
    •  & Chun-Hua Dong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We show frequency domain mirrors that provide reflections of optical mode propagation in the frequency domain. We theoretically investigated the mirror properties and experimentally demonstrate it using polarization and coupled-resonator-based coupling on thin film Lithium Niobate.

    • Yaowen Hu
    • , Mengjie Yu
    •  & Marko Lončar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors find the missing link for soliton microcombs that exist at the boundary where the group velocity dispersion of light changes sign: zero-dispersion solitons. The resulting microresonator frequency comb, based in Si3N4, spans almost an octave.

    • Miles H. Anderson
    • , Wenle Weng
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Full tomography of biphoton frequency comb states requires frequency mixing operations which are hard to scale. Here, the authors propose and demonstrate a protocol exploiting advanced Bayesian statistical methods and randomized measurements coming from complex mode mixing in electro-optic phase modulators.

    • Hsuan-Hao Lu
    • , Karthik V. Myilswamy
    •  & Joseph M. Lukens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The exploration of topological boundary effects is one of the important aspects that could foster the development of future topological photonics devices. Here the authors propose a straightforward method to construct sharp boundaries in synthetic dimensions using a modulated ring resonator strongly coupled to an auxiliary ring.

    • Avik Dutt
    • , Luqi Yuan
    •  & Shanhui Fan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding noise dynamics in frequency combs is crucial for applications. Here, the authors study the phase noise dynamics and the linewidth of soliton microcombs, revealing that some comb lines can be more quiet than the pump laser itself.

    • Fuchuan Lei
    • , Zhichao Ye
    •  & Victor Torres-Company

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A Kerr-nonlinear resonator with normal dispersion supports bright and dark pulse states. With photonic crystal ring resonators, this work demonstrates a continuum across these nonlinear states and explores the underlying mechanism.

    • Su-Peng Yu
    • , Erwan Lucas
    •  & Scott B. Papp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Discrete time crystals are described by a subharmonic response with respect to an external drive and have been mostly observed in closed periodically-driven systems. Here, the authors demonstrate a dissipative discrete time crystal in a Kerr-nonlinear optical microcavity pumped by two lasers.

    • Hossein Taheri
    • , Andrey B. Matsko
    •  & Krzysztof Sacha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chip-based architectures for mid-infrared gas sensing could enable many applications. In this direction, the authors demonstrate a microcomb-based dual-comb spectroscopy sensor with GHz resolution in the mid-IR band, with stability completely determined by a single high-Q microresonator.

    • Chengying Bao
    • , Zhiquan Yuan
    •  & Kerry J. Vahala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microcombs operating in the deterministic quantum regime could lead to new applications. Here, the authors demonstrate a quantum microcomb consisting of 20 two-mode squeezed comb pairs, in an optical microresonator on a silicon chip.

    • Zijiao Yang
    • , Mandana Jahanbozorgi
    •  & Xu Yi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Frequency-comb-based multiheterodyne spectroscopy requires that total bandwidth of the measured spectrum covers less than half the comb spacing, which is usually not the case for incoherent spectra. Here, the authors propose a technique that lifts this requirement, and demonstrate it in the microwave regime.

    • David J. Benirschke
    • , Ningren Han
    •  & David Burghoff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative solitons and their symmetry breaking is important for photonic applications. Here the authors show that dissipative solitons can undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking in a two-component nonlinear optical ring resonator, resulting in the coexistence of distinct vectorial solitons with asymmetric, mirror-like states of polarization.

    • Gang Xu
    • , Alexander U. Nielsen
    •  & Miro Erkintalo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors generate dissipative Kerr solitons with stable repetition rates and low optical power threshold. They achieve this by actively switching the bias current of injection-locked III-V semiconductor lasers and pulse-pumping crystalline and integrated microresonators with picosecond laser pulses.

    • Wenle Weng
    • , Aleksandra Kaszubowska-Anandarajah
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For microcomb-based radiofrequency filters pulse shapers are required, which increase the system cost, footprint, and complexity. Here, the authors bypass this need by exploiting versatile soliton states inherent in microresonator and achieve reconfigurable radiofrequency filters.

    • Jianqi Hu
    • , Jijun He
    •  & Camille-Sophie Brès

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors show that the resolution and speed limitations in broadband photo-acoustic spectroscopy can be overcome by combining dual-comb spectroscopy with photo-acoustic detection. This enables broadband detection and allows for rapid and sensitive multi-species molecular analysis across all wavelengths of light.

    • Thibault Wildi
    • , Thibault Voumard
    •  & Tobias Herr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For advanced microcomb applications, the exact detection of the high repetition rate becomes difficult due to the limited bandwidth of the photodiodes. Here, the authors present a Vernier dual-comb method to sample the main soliton comb and divide the repetition rate by a generating low frequency beat notes.

    • Beichen Wang
    • , Zijiao Yang
    •  & Xu Yi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For edge-sensitive timing applications, the edge jitter of electrical pulses is important. Here, the authors report on very low rising edge jitter extracted from an optical frequency comb and explore the best condition for low jitter by minimizing the amplitude-to-timing conversion in photodiodes.

    • Minji Hyun
    • , Changmin Ahn
    •  & Jungwon Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules of solitons provide insight into fundamental interactions between them and the underlying nonlinear system. The reported heteronuclear molecules, comprised of dissipative solitons with distinct frequencies, temporal widths, and energies enter the multistability regime and yield in interlocked frequency combs.

    • Wenle Weng
    • , Romain Bouchand
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors demonstrate the use of chaos to obtain 2-octave comb generation. The deformation lifts the circular symmetry and creates chaotic tunneling channels that enable broadband collection of intracavity emission with a single waveguide, introducing a new degree of freedom to microcomb studies.

    • Hao-Jing Chen
    • , Qing-Xin Ji
    •  & Yun-Feng Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite larger nonlinear coefficients, waveguide losses have prevented using semiconductors instead of dielectric materials for on-chip frequency-comb sources. By significantly reducing waveguide loss, ultra-low-threshold Kerr comb generation is demonstrated in a high-Q AlGaAs-on-insulator microresonator system.

    • Lin Chang
    • , Weiqiang Xie
    •  & John E. Bowers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to satisfy a wide range of modern microwave applications, improved methods are needed to produce low-noise microwave signals. Here the authors demonstrate ultra-low noise microwave synthesis via optical frequency division using a transfer oscillator method applied to a microresonator-based comb on the path to future self-referenced integrated sources.

    • Erwan Lucas
    • , Pierre Brochard
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Frequency combs have the potential to be used as multi-wavelength sources in future optical communications through fiber. Here the authors demonstrate joint phase processing of multi-wavelength comb transmission, and show two schemes to improve performance and reduce complexity.

    • Lars Lundberg
    • , Mikael Mazur
    •  & Peter A. Andrekson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Full spectral and temporal control of light has a multitude of applications but is often limited in frequency resolution. The authors implement a scheme using a frequency shifting optical loop for optical field spectral shaping with a high degree of control and megahertz resolution

    • Côme Schnébelin
    • , José Azaña
    •  & Hugues Guillet de Chatellus

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In normal dispersion, modulation instability, which is a precursor of Kerr combs, is forbidden due to phase mismatch. Here, the authors show the compensation of such phase mismatch by introducing frequency-dependent loss using a notch filter, hence leading to effective parametric gain and comb formation.

    • Florent Bessin
    • , Auro M. Perego
    •  & Arnaud Mussot

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