Hybrid Kerr-electro-optic frequency combs on thin-film lithium niobate

Yunxiang Song; Yaowen Hu; Marko Lončar; Kiyoul Yang

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01906-x

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Hybrid Kerr-electro-optic frequency combs on thin-film lithium niobate

Original Articles

- Hybrid Kerr-electro-optic frequency combs on thin-film lithium niobate
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 9, Pages: 2839-2851(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  2.Quantum Science and Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Author bio：
  
  Yunxiang Song (ysong1@g.harvard.edu)
  Marko Lončar (loncar@g.harvard.edu)
  Kiyoul Yang (kiyoul@seas.harvard.edu)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01906-x
  CLC：
- Received：15 January 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-05-13，
  
  Accepted：21 May 2025，
  
  Published Online：12 August 2025，
  
  Published：30 September 2025
- Accepted：
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Song, Y. X. et al. Hybrid Kerr-electro-optic frequency combs on thin-film lithium niobate. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2839-2851 (2025).
DOI：

Song, Y. X. et al. Hybrid Kerr-electro-optic frequency combs on thin-film lithium niobate. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2839-2851 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01906-x.

摘要

Abstract

Optical frequency combs are indispensable links between the optical and microwave domains. Chip-scale integration promises compact

scalable

and power-efficient frequency comb sources

enabled by the resonantly-enhanced Kerr effect or the electro-optic effect. While combs utilizing the former can reach octave-spanning bandwidths

and combs based on the latter can feature microwave-rate spacings

achieving both features at the same time has been challenging. Here

we simultaneously leverage the strong Kerr and electro-optic effects on thin-film lithium niobate

where dissipative Kerr soliton generation is followed by electro-optic phase modulation

to realize an integrated frequency comb reference with 2

589 lines spaced by 29.308 GHz and spanning 75.9 THz (588 nm). Further

we demonstrate electronic stabilization and control of the comb spacing

naturally facilitated by this approach. The broadband

microwave-rate frequency comb in our work overcomes the spacing-span tradeoff that exists in nonlinear integrated frequency comb sources

paving the way towards chip-scale solutions for next-generation laser spectroscopy

microwave and millimeter wave synthesis

as well as optical communications.

关键词

Keywords

references

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