arXiv subjects

Romain Bouchand

Publications and source records attributed to Romain Bouchand.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Heteronuclear soliton molecules in optical microresonators

Optical soliton molecules are bound states of solitons that arise from the balance between attractive and repulsive effects. Having been observed in systems ranging from optical fibers to mode-locked lasers, they provide insights into the fundamental interactions between solitons and the underlying dynamics of the nonlinear systems. Here, we enter the multistability regime of a Kerr microresonator to generate superpositions of distinct soliton states that are pumped at the same optical resonance, and report the discovery of heteronuclear dissipative Kerr soliton molecules. Ultrafast electrooptical sampling reveals the tightly short-range bound nature of such soliton molecules, despite comprising dissipative Kerr solitons of dissimilar amplitudes, durations and carrier frequencies. Besides the significance they hold in resolving soliton dynamics in complex nonlinear systems, such heteronuclear soliton molecules yield coherent frequency combs whose unusual mode structure may find applications in metrology and spectroscopy.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Photonic chip-based resonant supercontinuum

Supercontinuum generation in optical fibers is one of the most dramatic nonlinear effects discovered, allowing short pulses to be converted into multi-octave spanning coherent spectra. However, generating supercontinua that are both coherent and broadband requires pulses that are simultaneously ultrashort with high peak power. This results in a reducing efficiency with increasing pulse repetition rate, that has hindered supercontinua at microwave line spacing, i.e. 10s of GHz. Soliton microcombs by contrast, can generate octave-spanning spectra, but with good conversion efficiency only at vastly higher repetition rates in the 100s of GHz. Here, we bridge this efficiency gap with resonant supercontinuum, allowing supercontinuum generation using input pulses with an ultra-low 6 picojoule energy, and duration of 1 picosecond, 10-fold longer than what is typical. By applying synchronous pulse-driving to a dispersion-engineered, low-loss Si$_3$N$_4$ photonic chip microresonator, we generate dissipative Kerr solitons with a strong dispersive wave, both bound to the input pulse. This creates a smooth, flattened 2,200 line frequency comb, with an electronically detectable repetition rate of 28 GHz, constituting the largest bandwidth-line-count product for any microcomb generated to date. Strikingly, we observe that solitons exist in a weakly bound state with the input pulse, stabilizing their repetition rate, but simultaneously allowing noise transfer from one to the other to be suppressed even for offset frequencies 100 times lower than the linear cavity decay rate. We demonstrate that this nonlinear filtering can be enhanced by pulse-driving asynchronously, in order to preserve the coherence of the comb. Taken together, our work establishes resonant supercontinuum as a promising route to broadband and coherent spectra.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Ultralow-Noise Photonic Microwave Synthesis using a Soliton Microcomb-based Transfer Oscillator

The synthesis of ultralow-noise microwaves is of both scientific and technological relevance for timing, metrology, communications and radio-astronomy. Today, the lowest reported phase noise signals are obtained via optical frequency-division using mode-locked laser frequency combs. Nonetheless, this technique ideally requires high repetition rates and tight comb stabilisation. Here, a soliton microcomb with a 14 GHz repetition rate is generated with an ultra-stable pump laser and used to derive an ultralow-noise microwave reference signal, with an absolute phase noise level below -60 dBc/Hz at 1 Hz offset frequency and -135 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz. This is achieved using a transfer oscillator approach, where the free-running microcomb noise (which is carefully studied and minimised) is cancelled via a combination of electronic division and mixing. Although this proof-of-principle uses an auxiliary comb for detecting the microcomb's offset frequency, we highlight the prospects of this method with future self-referenced integrated microcombs and electro-optic combs, that would allow for ultralow-noise microwave and sub-terahertz signal generators.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2019

Nanophotonic soliton-based microwave synthesizers

Microwave photonic technologies, which upshift the carrier into the optical domain to facilitate the generation and processing of ultrawide-band electronic signals at vastly reduced fractional bandwidths, have the potential to achieve superior performance compared to conventional electronics for targeted functions. For microwave photonic applications such as filters, coherent radars, subnoise detection, optical communications and low-noise microwave generation, frequency combs are key building blocks. By virtue of soliton microcombs, frequency combs can now be built using CMOS compatible photonic integrated circuits, operated with low power and noise, and have already been employed in system-level demonstrations. Yet, currently developed photonic integrated microcombs all operate with repetition rates significantly beyond those that conventional electronics can detect and process, compounding their use in microwave photonics. Here we demonstrate integrated soliton microcombs operating in two widely employed microwave bands, X- and K-band. These devices can produce more than 300 comb lines within the 3-dB-bandwidth, and generate microwave signals featuring phase noise levels below 105 dBc/Hz (140 dBc/Hz) at 10 kHz (1 MHz) offset frequency, comparable to modern electronic microwave synthesizers. In addition, the soliton pulse stream can be injection-locked to a microwave signal, enabling actuator-free repetition rate stabilization, tuning and microwave spectral purification, at power levels compatible with silicon-based lasers (<150 mW). Our results establish photonic integrated soliton microcombs as viable integrated low-noise microwave synthesizers. Further, the low repetition rates are critical for future dense WDM channel generation schemes, and can significantly reduce the system complexity of photonic integrated frequency synthesizers and atomic clocks.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Packaged photonic chip-based soliton microcomb using an ultralow-noise laser

Photonic chip-based soliton microcombs have shown rapid progress and have already been used in many system-level applications, including coherent communications, astrophysical spectrometer calibration and ultrafast ranging. While there has been substantial progress in realizing soliton microcombs that rely on compact laser diodes, culminating in devices that only utilize a semiconductor amplifier or a self-injection-locked laser as a pump source, accessing and generating single soliton states with electronically detectable line rates from a compact laser module has remained challenging. Here we demonstrate a current-initiated, $\mathrm{Si_3N_4}$ chip-based, 99-GHz soliton microcomb driven directly by an ultra-compact, low-noise laser. This approach does not require any fast laser tuning mechanism, and single soliton states can be accessed by changing the current of the laser diode. A simple, yet reliable, packaging technique has been developed to demonstrate the viability of such a microcomb system in field-deployable applications.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2019

Cherenkov radiation induced symmetry breaking in counter propagating dissipative Kerr solitons

The process of soliton Cherenkov radiation (also known as dispersive wave emission) in microresonator frequency combs plays a critical role in generating broadband and coherent microcomb spectra. Here, we report the observation of symmetry breaking in the group velocity of counter-propagating dissipative Kerr solitons, induced by polychromatic soliton Cherenkov radiation. Results show that in the presence of higher-order dispersion, the temporal arrangement of a multi-soliton state affects its group velocity, an effect which originates from the interference between multiple radiative tails emitted by individual solitons. Experimentally, we bidirectionally pump a microresonator with laser fields of equal power and frequency, and observe lifting of the degeneracy between the repetition rates of the counter-propagating solitons. The observation of symmetry breaking despite symmetric pumping conditions not only shines new light on the impact of dispersive waves on dissipative Kerr soliton dynamics, but also introduces a novel approach to develop coherent dual-comb spectrometers based on microcombs.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

Spatial multiplexing of soliton microcombs

Dual-comb interferometry utilizes two optical frequency combs to map the optical field's spectrum to a radio-frequency signal without using moving parts, allowing improved speed and accuracy. However, the method is compounded by the complexity and demanding stability associated with operating multiple laser frequency combs. To overcome these challenges, we demonstrate simultaneous generation of multiple frequency combs from a single optical microresonator and a single continuous-wave laser. Similar to space-division multiplexing, we generate several dissipative Kerr soliton states - circulating solitonic pulses driven by a continuous-wave laser - in different spatial (or polarization) modes of a $\mathrm{MgF_2}$ microresonator. Up to three distinct combs are produced simultaneously, featuring excellent mutual coherence and substantial repetition rate differences, useful for fast acquisition and efficient rejection of soliton intermodulation products. Dual-comb spectroscopy with amplitude and phase retrieval, as well as optical sampling of a breathing soliton, is realised with the free-running system. Compatibility with photonic-integrated resonators could enable the deployment of dual- and triple-comb-based methods to applications where they remained impractical with current technology.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Phase noise characterization of sub-hertz linewidth lasers via digital cross correlation

Phase noise or frequency noise is a key metrics to evaluate the short term stability of a laser. This property is of a great interest for the applications but delicate to characterize, especially for narrow line-width lasers. In this letter, we demonstrate a digital cross correlation scheme to characterize the absolute phase noise of sub-hertz line-width lasers. Three 1,542 nm ultra-stable lasers are used in this approach. For each measurement two lasers act as references to characterize a third one. Phase noise power spectral density from 0.5 Hz to 0.8 MHz Fourier frequencies can be derived for each laser by a mere change in the configuration of the lasers. This is the first time showing the phase noise of sub-hertz line-width lasers with no reference limitation. We also present an analysis of the laser phase noise performance.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Photonic microwave signals with zeptosecond level absolute timing noise

Photonic synthesis of radiofrequency revived the quest for unrivalled microwave purity by its seducing ability to convey the benefits of the optics to the microwave world. In this work, we perform a high-fidelity transfer of frequency stability between an optical reference and a microwave signal via a low-noise fiber-based frequency comb and cutting-edge photo-detection techniques. We demonstrate the generation of the purest microwave signal with a fractional frequency stability below 6.5 x 10^-16 at 1 s and a timing noise floor below 41 zs.Hz^-1/2 (phase noise below -173 dBc.Hz^-1 for a 12 GHz carrier). This outclasses existing sources and promises a new era for state-of-the-art microwave generation. The characterization is achieved by building two auxiliary low noise optoelectronic microwave reference and using a heterodyne cross-correlation scheme with lowermost detection noise. This unprecedented level of purity can impact domains such as radar systems, telecommunications and time-frequency metrology. Furthermore, the measurement methods developed here can benefit the characterization of a broad range of signals, beyond comb-based systems.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2012

Running of Radiative Neutrino Masses: The Scotogenic Model

We study the renormalization group equations of Ma's scotogenic model, which generates an active neutrino mass at 1-loop level. In addition to other benefits, the main advantage of the mechanism exploited in this model is to lead to a natural loop-suppression of the neutrino mass, and therefore to an explanation for its smallness. However, since the structure of the neutrino mass matrix is altered compared to the ordinary type I seesaw case, the corresponding running is altered as well. We have derived the full set of renormalization group equations for the scotogenic model which, to our knowledge, had not been presented previously in the literature. This set of equations reflects some interesting structural properties of the model, and it is an illustrative example for how the running of neutrino parameters in radiative models is modified compared to models with tree-level mass generation. We also study a simplified numerical example to illustrate some general tendencies of the running. Interestingly, the structure of the RGEs can be exploited such that a bimaximal leptonic mixing pattern at the high-energy scale is translated into a valid mixing pattern at low energies, featuring a large value of θ_{13}. This suggests very interesting connections to flavour symmetries.

hep-ph↗