Broadband microwave-rate dark pulse microcombs in dissipation-engineered LiNbO3 microresonators

Xiaomin Lv, Binbin Nie, Chen Yang (), Rui Ma, Ze Wang, Yanwu Liu, Xing Jin, Kaixuan Zhu, Zhenyu Chen, Du Qian, Guanyu Zhang, Guowei Lv, Qihuang Gong, Fang Bo () and Qi-Fan Yang ()
Additional contact information
Xiaomin Lv: School of Physics, Peking University
Binbin Nie: School of Physics, Peking University
Chen Yang: School of Physics, Peking University
Rui Ma: Nankai University
Ze Wang: School of Physics, Peking University
Yanwu Liu: School of Physics, Peking University
Xing Jin: School of Physics, Peking University
Kaixuan Zhu: School of Physics, Peking University
Zhenyu Chen: Nankai University
Du Qian: School of Physics, Peking University
Guanyu Zhang: School of Physics, Peking University
Guowei Lv: School of Physics, Peking University
Qihuang Gong: School of Physics, Peking University
Fang Bo: Nankai University
Qi-Fan Yang: School of Physics, Peking University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Kerr microcombs generated in optical microresonators provide broadband light sources bridging optical and microwave signals. Their translation to thin-film lithium niobate unlocks second-order nonlinear optical interfaces such as electro-optic modulation and frequency doubling for completing comb functionalities. However, the strong Raman response of LiNbO3 has complicated the formation of Kerr microcombs. Until now, dark pulse microcombs, requiring a double balance between Kerr nonlinearity and normal group velocity dispersion as well as gain and loss, have remained elusive in LiNbO3 microresonators. Here, by incorporating dissipation engineering, we demonstrate dark pulse microcombs with 25 GHz repetition frequency and 200 nm span in a high-Q LiNbO3 microresonator. Resonances near the Raman-active wavelengths are strongly damped by controlling phase-matching conditions of a specially designed pulley coupler. The coherence and tunability of the dark pulse microcombs are also investigated. Our work provides a solution to realize high-power microcombs operating at microwave rates on LiNbO3 chips, promising new opportunities for the monolithic integration of applications spanning communication to microwave photonics.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57736-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57736-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57736-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().