Radically Tunable Ultrafast Photonic Oscillators via Differential Pumping

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a highly tunable photonic oscillator composed of two coupled semiconductor lasers, with controllable frequency and asymmetry, suitable for chip-scale RF photonics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a controllable system of coupled lasers with adjustable limit cycles, enabling wide frequency tuning and asymmetry control through differential pumping and detuning.

Findings

Supports stable limit cycles from a few GHz to over 100 GHz

Frequency and asymmetry are controllable via differential pumping and detuning

Potential for multi-functional chip-scale RF photonic devices

Abstract

We present the controllability capabilities for the limit cycles of an extremely tunable photonic oscillator, consisting of two coupled semiconductor lasers. We show that this system supports stable limit cycles with frequencies ranging from a few to more than a hundred GHz that are characterized by a widely varying degree of asymmetry between the oscillations of the two lasers. These dynamical features are directly controllable via differential pumping as well as optical frequency detuning of the two lasers, suggesting a multi-functional oscillator for chip-scale radio-frequency photonics applications.