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Photonic Microwave Generation with Free-running Monolithic Optical Frequency Combs
Ultra-low phase noise microwaves are of great interest due to their applications in many fields such as Radar, Communication, GPS, Astronomy, etc. The conventional ultra-low noise microwave sources rely on the high-quality factor of microwave resonators such as sapphire-loaded cavities. On the other hand, high finesse optical cavities offer superior Q factors compared to microwave counterparts, thanks to the low loss and low dispersion in the optical domain. Recent advancements in optical frequency combs have made it possible to bring this stability into the microwave domain via phase-coherent optical frequency division. However, due to their complexity and size, these optical frequency division systems are confined primarily to laboratory environments. Mode-locked monolithic lasers (MMLL) offer ultra-low free-running intrinsic noise performance and are a viable alternative to conventional OFD systems. This ultra-low noise performance of the monolithic combs removes the phase/frequency stabilization requirement from OFD systems, reducing the size, weight, and power consumption of the system. This thesis describes the path towards realizing a simple free-running monolithic comb-based microwave oscillator in X-Band. The performance of this approach is comparable to best laboratory OFD systems but with significantly reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP)