New Progress of Chip-integrated Microresonators Optical Frequency Comb of XIOPM Was Highly Recommended by OSA’s “Spotlight on Optics”

Funded by CAS Strategic Pilot Technology Special Program (Class B) “Large Photon Integrated Chip” and NSFC, in October 2018 XIOPM State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Micro-Nano Optics and Photonics Integration Research Group has made new progress in the field of Chip-integrated Microresonators Optical Frequency Comb. The invited paper “Raman self-frequency shift of soliton crystal in a high index doped silica micro-ring resonator” published in Optical Materials Express was highly recommended by OSA’s “Spotlight on Optics”.

With characteristics like miniaturization, ultra-high repetition frequency and etc., chip-integrated microresonators optical frequency comb is expected to be important in the application in the fields of precision spectrometry, absolute ranging, astronomical observation, miniaturized optical clock, ultra-high-speed optical communication and etc. Daniel C. Cole of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) commented that “the discovery of the complex nonlinear dynamics in optical microresonators is an important step that developing the optical frequency comb technology which is equipped with revolutionary frequency measurement and synthesis capabilities into chips, and the results of XIOPM’s paper bring people closer to the realization of this goal.” The paper also studies two different nonlinear effects: soliton pulse Raman self-frequency shift caused by Raman scattering and soliton crystals-pulse train that simultaneously transmit in cavity resonator and array spontaneously and in good order. The significance of the paper lies in: first, it shows that characteristic spectrum of soliton crystals could be used for research of the Raman response of optical materials, which provides a new tool for studying nonlinear dynamics in the similar systems; second, the measurement on Raman response of doped glass materials with high refractive index is crucial, for it could deepen the understanding that how to develop micro-comb based on this material platform and help to estimate the potential and limit of the material itself, and then promote its application. In all, the results of the paper bring people closer to the full development of the great potential that nonlinear optical integrated microresonator will be applied in multiple fields.

“Spotlight on Optics” is a highlight of the OSA, co-nominated by OSA’s topical editors and associate editors. It mainly focuses on the latest researches in six technical areas (including information acquisition, processing and display, light-substance interaction, optical design and devices, bio-optics, optoelectronics and vision and color science), covering all papers published by OSA. In 2017, about more than 8000 papers were published by journals subordinated to the OSA, and 76 of which were selected to “Spotlight on Optics”. (By State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics)

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