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Superefficient microcombs at the wafer level
Optics Express
|August 13, 2025
Summary
Wafer-scale soliton microcombs achieve over 50% conversion efficiency, enabling chip-scale frequency combs for integrated photonics. This breakthrough supports applications in navigation, data centers, and advanced sensing technologies.
Area of Science:
- Photonics and Optical Engineering
- Integrated Optics
- Microwave Photonics
Background:
- Chip-scale frequency combs are crucial for integrated photonic systems, offering massive wavelength parallelization.
- Current efficient solutions are limited to the die level, hindering scalable manufacturing.
- Potential applications include advanced navigation, data center interconnects, and ranging systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To report wafer-level characterization of soliton microcombs.
- To demonstrate high conversion efficiency and stable repetition rates at the wafer scale.
- To explore novel sensing applications enabled by wafer-level redundancy and multi-comb interferometry.
Main Methods:
- Wafer-level fabrication and characterization of soliton microcombs.
- Measurement of conversion efficiency, line count, and repetition rate stability.
- Development and demonstration of tri-comb interferometry for spectroscopy.
Main Results:
- Achieved average conversion efficiency exceeding 50% across the wafer.
- Generated 100 optical lines with a 100 GHz repetition rate and 20 MHz standard deviation.
- Demonstrated tri-comb interferometry for broadband phase-sensitive spectroscopy.
Conclusions:
- Wafer-level soliton microcombs offer a scalable and efficient solution for integrated photonics.
- The demonstrated performance enables practical applications in communications, sensing, and metrology.
- Wafer-level redundancy opens new avenues for advanced sensing modalities like phase-sensitive spectroscopy.
