Compact Low-Noise Photonic Microwave Generation From Commercial Low-Noise Lasers

Romain Bouchand (1) , Xiaopeng Xie (1) , Michele Giunta (2) , Wolfgang Hänsel (2) , Matthias Lezius (2) , Ronald Holzwarth (2) , Christophe Alexandre (3) , Pierre-Alain Tremblin (4) , Giorgio Santarelli (4) , Yann Le Coq (1)

1 LNE - SYRTE - Laboratoire national de métrologie et d'essais - Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace
2 Menlo Systems GmbH
3 CEDRIC - LAETITIA - CEDRIC. Traitement du signal et architectures électroniques
4 LP2N - Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences

We demonstrate how phase-locking a whispering gallery mode-stabilized semiconductor laser to a high-stability Erbium-based distributed feedback fiber laser makes an outstanding optical reference for photonic microwave generation using an optical frequency comb. Using only commercially available compact lasers, it allows generation of a 12 GHz microwave signal with absolute levels of phase noise below-47 dBc/Hz at 1 Hz and-170 dBc/Hz at 50 kHz from the carrier. Index Terms-Phase noise, microwave source, optical frequency comb, distributed feedback laser, whispering gallery mode resonator (WGMR).

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Electronics

Romain Bouchand, Xiaopeng Xie, Michele Giunta, Wolfgang Hänsel, Matthias Lezius, et al.. Compact Low-Noise Photonic Microwave Generation From Commercial Low-Noise Lasers. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 2017, 29 (16), pp.1403-1406. ⟨10.1109/LPT.2017.2723821⟩. ⟨hal-02448867⟩