Optical frequency combs enable coherent data transmission on hundreds of
wavelength channels and have the potential to revolutionize terabit
communications. Generation of Kerr combs in nonlinear integrated microcavities
represents a particularly promising option enabling line spacings of tens of
GHz, compliant with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) grids. However, Kerr
combs may exhibit strong phase noise and multiplet spectral lines, and this has
made high-speed data transmission impossible up to now. Recent work has shown
that systematic adjustment of pump conditions enables low phase-noise Kerr
combs with singlet spectral lines. Here we demonstrate that Kerr combs are
suited for coherent data transmission with advanced modulation formats that
pose stringent requirements on the spectral purity of the optical source. In a
first experiment, we encode a data stream of 392 Gbit/s on subsequent lines of
a Kerr comb using quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 16-state quadrature
amplitude modulation (16QAM). A second experiment shows feedback-stabilization
of a Kerr comb and transmission of a 1.44 Tbit/s data stream over a distance of
up to 300 km. The results demonstrate that Kerr combs can meet the highly
demanding requirements of multi-terabit/s coherent communications and thus
offer a solution towards chip-scale terabit/s transceivers
