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arXiv · 1911.02636

Integrated turnkey soliton microcombs operated at CMOS frequencies

Boqiang Shen·Lin Chang·Junqiu Liu·Heming Wang·Qi-Fan Yang·Chao Xiang·Rui Ning Wang·Jijun He·Tianyi Liu·Weiqiang Xie·Joel Guo·Dave Kinghorn·Lue Wu·Qing-Xin Ji·Tobias J. Kippenberg·Kerry Vahala·John E. Bowers
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Abstract

While soliton microcombs offer the potential for integration of powerful frequency metrology and precision spectroscopy systems, their operation requires complex startup and feedback protocols that necessitate difficult-to-integrate optical and electrical components. Moreover, CMOS-rate microcombs, required in nearly all comb systems, have resisted integration because of their power requirements. Here, a regime for turnkey operation of soliton microcombs co-integrated with a pump laser is demonstrated and theoretically explained. Significantly, a new operating point is shown to appear from which solitons are generated through binary turn-on and turn-off of the pump laser, thereby eliminating all photonic/electronic control circuitry. These features are combined with high-Q $Si_3N_4$ resonators to fully integrate into a butterfly package microcombs with CMOS frequencies as low as 15 GHz, offering compelling advantages for high-volume production.

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Boqiang Shen, Lin Chang, Junqiu Liu, Heming Wang, Qi-Fan Yang, Chao Xiang, Rui Ning Wang, Jijun He, Tianyi Liu, Weiqiang Xie, Joel Guo, Dave Kinghorn, Lue Wu, Qing-Xin Ji, Tobias J. Kippenberg, Kerry Vahala, John E. Bowers. 2019-11-06. Integrated turnkey soliton microcombs operated at CMOS frequencies. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2358-x

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