Gas-phase microresonator-based comb spectroscopy without an external pump laser

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel microresonator-based comb spectroscopy method that achieves high spectral resolution without an external pump laser by tuning a fiber-laser cavity and microresonator, enabling broadband molecular absorption measurements.

Contribution

It demonstrates a dual-cavity scheme with integrated heater control to generate self-starting combs and achieve high resolution, overcoming traditional spectral resolution limits of chip-based combs.

Findings

Achieved spectral resolution equal to the comb linewidth.

Successfully measured broadband acetylene absorption spectra.

Implemented low-power, CMOS-compatible microresonator tuning.

Abstract

We present a novel approach to realize microresonator-comb-based high resolution spectroscopy that combines a fiber-laser cavity with a microresonator. Although the spectral resolution of a chip-based comb source is typically limited by the free spectral range (FSR) of the microresonator, we overcome this limit by tuning the 200-GHz repetition-rate comb over one FSR via control of an integrated heater. Our dual-cavity scheme allows for self-starting comb generation without the need for conventional pump-cavity detuning while achieving a spectral resolution equal to the comb linewidth. We measure broadband molecular absorption spectra of acetylene by interleaving 800 spectra taken at 250-MHz per spectral step using a 60-GHz-coarse-resolution spectrometer and exploits advances of integrated heater which can locally and rapidly change the refractive index of a microresonator with low electrical consumption (0.9 GHz/mW), which is orders of magnitude lower than a fiber-based comb. This approach offers a path towards a simple, robust and low-power consumption CMOS-compatible platform capable of remote sensing.