Soliton frequency comb at microwave rates in a high-Q silica microresonator

Abstract

Frequency combs are having a broad impact on science and technology because they provide a way to coherently link radio/microwave-rate electrical signals with optical-rate signals derived from lasers and atomic transitions. Integrating these systems on a photonic chip would revolutionize instrumentation, time keeping, spectroscopy, navigation, and potentially create new mass-market applications. A key element of such a system-on-a-chip will be a mode-locked comb that can be self-referenced. The recent demonstration of soliton mode locking in crystalline and silicon nitride microresonators has provided a way to both mode lock and generate femtosecond time-scale pulses. Here, soliton mode locking is demonstrated in high-