Design and experimental simulation for an optical frequency transfer system on silicon photonic platform

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Integrated Optics
• Frequency Metrology

Background:

• Accurate optical frequency transfer is crucial for advanced applications.
• Silicon photonics offers a platform for miniaturized and integrated optical systems.
• Evaluating performance before fabrication is essential for integrated photonic circuit design.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and simulate an optical frequency transfer system for silicon photonics integration.
• To develop an experimental simulator for performance evaluation of photonic integrated circuits.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of a compact and high-accuracy optical frequency transfer system.

Main Methods:

• Development of an experimental simulator using replaceable optics.
• Exploitation of a carrier-suppressed single-sideband Mach-Zehnder modulator as a phase-compensation actuator.
• Simulation of a 90 km fiber network for noise cancellation and performance testing.

Main Results:

• Achieved an instability of 2 × 10-18 for the transmitted optical frequency.
• Demonstrated uninterrupted operations over 24 hours in the simulated fiber network.
• Validated the effectiveness of the double-pass phase-compensation actuator for fiber-induced noise cancellation.

Conclusions:

• A chip-scale and highly accurate optical frequency transfer system is feasible using the proposed silicon photonics design.
• The experimental simulator effectively evaluates performance prior to fabricating photonic integrated circuits.
• The developed system has potential for numerous applications requiring precise optical frequency transfer.