High spectral purity Kerr frequency comb radio frequency photonic oscillator

Abstract

Femtosecond laser-based generation of radio frequency signals has produced astonishing improvements in achievable spectral purity, one of the basic features characterizing the performance of an radio frequency oscillator. Kerr frequency combs hold promise for transforming these lab-scale oscillators to chip-scale level. In this work we demonstrate a miniature 10 GHz radio frequency photonic oscillator characterized with phase noise better than −60 dBc Hz⁻¹ at 10 Hz, −90 dBc Hz⁻¹ at 100 Hz and −170 dBc Hz⁻¹ at 10 MHz. The frequency stability of this device, as represented by Allan deviation measurements, is at the level of 10⁻¹⁰ at 1–100 s integration time—orders of magnitude better than existing radio frequency photonic devices of similar size, weight and power consumption.