Spectral Line-by-Line Pulse Shaping of an On-Chip Microresonator Frequency Comb

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates spectral phase characterization and line-by-line pulse shaping of an on-chip microresonator frequency comb, enabling near-transform-limited pulse generation and optical waveform control, with implications for stability and precision.

Contribution

First demonstration of spectral phase characterization and line-by-line pulse shaping of an on-chip microresonator frequency comb.

Findings

Achieved near-transform-limited pulses of approximately 300 fs duration.

Demonstrated stable pulse compression and waveform generation.

Estimated spectral phase stability at or below 100 microHertz.

Abstract

We report, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, spectral phase characterization and line-by-line pulse shaping of an optical frequency comb generated by nonlinear wave mixing in a microring resonator. Through programmable pulse shaping the comb is compressed into a train of near-transform-limited pulses of \approx 300 fs duration (intensity full width half maximum) at 595 GHz repetition rate. An additional, simple example of optical arbitrary waveform generation is presented. The ability to characterize and then stably compress the frequency comb provides new data on the stability of the spectral phase and suggests that random relative frequency shifts due to uncorrelated variations of frequency dependent phase are at or below the 100 microHertz level.