Electrically empowered microcomb laser

Abstract

Optical microcomb underpins a wide range of applications from communication, metrology, to sensing. Although extensively explored in recent years, challenges remain in key aspects of microcomb such as complex soliton initialization, low power efficiency, and limited comb reconfigurability. Here we present an on-chip microcomb laser to address these key challenges. Realized with integration between III and V gain chip and a thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuit (PIC), the laser directly emits mode-locked microcomb on demand with robust turnkey operation inherently built in, with individual comb linewidth down to 600 Hz, whole-comb frequency tuning rate exceeding 2.4 × 1017 Hz/s, and 100% utilization of optical power fully contributing to comb generation. The demonstrated approach unifies architecture and operation simplicity, electro-optic reconfigurability, high-speed tunability, and multifunctional capability enabled by TFLN PIC, opening up a great avenue towards on-demand generation of mode-locked microcomb that is of great potential for broad applications.