Testing optomechanical microwave oscillators for SATCOM application

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a silicon-based optomechanical microwave oscillator capable of generating stable, high-frequency signals up to 20 GHz, suitable for satellite communication applications, and validates its performance in a real SATCOM testbed.

Contribution

First experimental validation of a silicon optomechanical microwave oscillator in a SATCOM environment, showing its potential as a compact, high-frequency photonic local oscillator.

Findings

Generated microwave tones up to 20 GHz.

Validated oscillator performance in a SATCOM testbed.

Confirmed suitability for satellite communication applications.

Abstract

The realization of photonic microwave oscillators using optomechanical cavities has recently become a reality. By pumping the cavity with a blue-detuned laser, the so-called phonon lasing regime - in which a mechanical resonance is amplified beyond losses - can be reached and the input signal gets modulated by highly-coherent tones at integer multiples of the mechanical resonance. \textcolor{Red}{Implementing optomechanical cavities on released films with high index of refraction can lead to optical modes at telecom wavelengths and mechanical resonances in the GHz scale, resulting in highly-stable signals in the microwave domain upon photodetection}. Owing to the extreme compactness of such cavities, application in satellite communications (SATCOM) seems highly appropriate, but no experiments have been reported so far. In this paper, an optomechanical microwave oscillator (OMO) built on a micron-scale silicon optomechanical crystal cavity is characterized and tested in a real SATCOM testbed. Using a blue-detuned laser, the OMO is driven into a phonon lasing state where multiple harmonics are generated, reaching tones up to 20 GHz. Under this regime, its practical applicability, remarkably addressing its performance as a photonic local oscillator, has been validated. The results, in addition with the advantages of extreme compactness and silicon-technology compatibility, make OMOs very promising candidates to build \textcolor{Red}{ultra-low} weight photonics-based microwave oscillators for SATCOM applications.