Transient Regime of Kerr Frequency Comb Formation

Temporal growth of an optical Kerr frequency comb generated in a microresonator is studied both experimentally and numerically. We find that the comb emerges from vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field on timescales significantly exceeding the ringdown time of the resonator modes. The frequency harmonics of the comb spread starting from the optically pumped mode if the microresonator is characterized with anomalous group velocity dispersion. The harmonics have different growth rates resulting from sequential four-wave mixing process that explains intrinsic modelocking of the comb.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Miniature Optical Atomic Clock: Stabilization of a Kerr Comb Oscillator

Mechanical clocks consist of a pendulum and a clockwork that translates the pendulum period to displayed time. The most advanced clocks utilize optical transitions in atoms in place of the pendulum and an optical frequency comb generated by a femtosecond laser as the clockwork. The comb must be stabilized at two points along its frequency spectrum: one with a laser to lock a comb line to a transition in the atom, and another through self referencing to stabilize the frequency interval between the comb lines. This approach requires advanced techniques, so optical atomic clocks are currently laboratory devices in specialized labs. In this paper we leverage unique properties of Kerr comb oscillators for realization of optical atomic clocks in miniature form factors. In particular, we describe a clock based on D1 transition of 87Rb that fits in the palm of the hand, and can be further miniaturized to chip scale.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Hard and Soft Excitation Regimes of Kerr Frequency Combs

We theoretically study the stability conditions and excitation regimes of hyper-parametric oscillation and Kerr frequency comb generation in continuously pumped nonlinear optical resonators possessing anomalous group velocity dispersion. We show that both hard and soft excitation regimes are possible in the resonators. Selection between the regimes is achieved via change in the parameters of the pumping light.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure

The Laser-only Single-event Effects Test Method for Spacecraft Electronics Based on Ultrashort-pulsed-laser Local Irradiation

The substantive laser method for studying the radiation hardness of semiconductor devices, not requiring calibration by ions, called ”local irradiation”, is described. The essence of the local approach is in irradiating the sample sensitive volume with the ultrashort-pulsed laser beam at some distance from its focus plane, where the beam becomes rather wide and divergent. Assuming the single-photon absorption, the relationship between the laser pulse energy and the excess charge actually generated in irradiated sensitive volume is obtained by accurate measurement of the electrical response, that makes possible to take into account non-uniform optical losses and avoid additional calibration by ions. Some results, obtained using both the front-side and the backside local irradiation of devices, are presented. Comparison with results obtained by traditional methods using focused laser radiation with subsequent calibration by ions showed that laser-only measurements, based on described local irradiation, give the correct estimates of radiation hardness parameters. Keywords: Ultrashort laser pulse, single-event effect, local laser irradiation, semiconductor device, integrated circuit

Passively mode locked Raman laser

We report on the observation of a novel mode locked optical comb generated at the Raman offset (Raman comb) in an optically pumped crystalline whispering gallery mode resonator. Mode locking is confirmed via measurement of the radio-frequency beat note produced by the optical comb on a fast photodiode. Neither the conventional Kerr comb nor hyper-parametric oscillation is observed when the Raman comb is present

Whispering gallery mode resonator based ultra-narrow linewidth external cavity semiconductor laser

We demonstrate a miniature self-injection locked DFB laser using resonant optical feedback from a high-Q crystalline whispering gallery mode resonator. The linewidth reduction factor is greater than 10,000, with resultant instantaneous linewidth less than 200 Hz. The minimal value of the Allan deviation for the laser frequency stability is 3x10^(-12) at the integration time of 20 us. The laser possesses excellent spectral purity and good long term stability.Comment: To be published in Optics Letter

Efficient upconversion of sub-THz radiation in a high-Q whispering gallery resonator

We demonstrate efficient upconversion of sub-THz radiation into the optical domain in a high-Q whispering gallery mode resonator with quadratic optical nonlinearity. The 5x10^{-3} power conversion efficiency of continuous wave 100GHz signal is achieved with only 16 mW of optical pump.Comment: This revision is limited to discussion of only optical WGMs coupled with the external Rf field. Discussion of RF WGMs is now posted separatel