Shixin Xue, Mingxiao Li, Raymond Lopez-rios, Jingwei Ling, Zhengdong Gao, Qili Hu, Tian Qiu, Jeremy Staffa, Lin Chang, Heming Wang, Chao Xiang, John E. Bowers, Qiang Lin
The invention of the laser unleashed the potential of optical metrology, leading to numerous advancements in modern science and technology. This reliance on lasers, however, also sets a bottleneck for precision optical metrology which is complicated by sophisticated photonic infrastructure required for delicate laser-wave control, leading to limited metrology performance and significant system complexity. Here we make a key step towards resolving this challenge, by demonstrating a Pockels laser with multi-functional capability that advances the optical metrology to a new level. The chip-scale laser exhibits a narrow intrinsic linewidth down to 167 Hz and a broad mode-hop-free tuning range up to 24 GHz. In particular, it offers an unprecedented frequency chirping rate up to 20 EHz/s, and an enormous modulation bandwidth >10 GHz, both orders of magnitude larger than any existing lasers. With this laser, we are able to successfully achieve velocimetry of 40 m/s at a short distance of 0.4 m, with a measurable velocity up to the first cosmic velocity at 1 m away, that is inaccessible by conventional ranging approaches, and distance metrology with a ranging resolution of <2 cm. Moreover, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, we are able to realize a dramatically simplified architecture for laser frequency stabilization, by direct locking the laser to an external reference gas cell without any extra external light control. We successfully achieve a long-term laser stability with a frequency fluctuation of only $\pm$ 6.5 MHz over 60 minutes. The demonstrated Pockels laser combines elegantly high laser coherence with ultrafast frequency reconfigurability and superior multifunctional capability that we envision to have profound impacts on many areas including communication, sensing, autonomous driving, quantum information processing, and beyond.
Ultrafast and long-term stability Integrated Pockels laser with thin-film PZT
State Key Laboratory for Extreme Photonics and Instrumentation, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Technology, College of Optical Science and Engineering, International Research Center for Advanced Photonics, Zhejiang University（浙江大学极端光子学与仪器教育部重点实验室、光电信息技术浙江省重点实验室、光学与光学工程学院、先进光子学国际研究中心）；China Jiliang University（中国计量大学）；Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学杭州高等研究院）
Sub-kHz linewidth integrated extended-DBR Pockels lasers using lithium tantalate
Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院物理研究所）；Deeplight SA（Deeplight公司）；State Key Laboratory of Materials for Integrated Circuits, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海微系统与信息技术研究所集成电路材料重点实验室）；Institute of Electrical and Micro engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院电气与微电子工程研究所）
All-optical polarization control in time-varying low-index films via plasma symmetry breaking
Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriot-Watt University（赫瑞-瓦特大学光子与量子科学研究所）；Elmore Family School of Electrical Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University（普渡大学埃尔默电气计算机工程学院和伯克纳米技术中心）；Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia（布雷西亚大学信息工程系）；Charles M. Bowden Research Center, Redstone Arsenal（查尔斯·M·鲍登研究中心，红石兵工厂）；Department of Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of L’Aquila（阿奎拉大学物理与化学科学系）
ICFO – Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology（光子科学研究所，巴塞罗那科学技术研究院）；Atominstitut, Technische Universität Wien（原子研究所，维也纳工业大学）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London（伦敦大学学院物理与天文系）；Attosecond Quantum Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, King’s College London（伦敦国王学院物理系阿托秒量子物理实验室）
Quantum-interference metrology of dissipative Kerr solitons
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学）；Tianfu Jiangxi Laboratory（天府江西实验室）；Southwest Institute of Technical Physics（西南技术物理研究所）；Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海微系统信息技术研究所）；AMS；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）
University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学）；James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学詹姆斯·C·怀恩特光学科学学院）；ICFO–Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology（ICFO-光子科学研究所，巴塞罗那科学技术研究院）；Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London（伦敦大学学院物理与天文学系）
Shot-noise-limited few-cycle mid-infrared frequency comb with attosecond phase stability
Wrocław University of Science and Technology（弗罗茨瓦夫理工大学）；University of Warsaw（华沙大学）；Center for Molecular Fingerprinting Research（分子指纹研究中心）；Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics（马克斯·普朗克量子光学研究所）
克尔微谐振器通过连续波（CW）激光的非线性相互作用产生有趣的和有用的电磁辐射的基本状态。利用光子集成技术，可以实现低噪声、小尺寸、低功耗、可扩展制造以及光子学和电子学的异构组合的功能器件。克尔孤子在克尔微谐振腔中稳定地传播，是产生相干超快脉冲串和超宽带光学频率梳的重要光源。使用f-2f技术，克尔梳支持光学合成和计量的载波包络偏移相位稳定。本文介绍了一种基于光频分（OFD）的克尔微谐振器光钟系统，它是一种将光钟的分数频率稳定度转换为较低频率的电子钟信号的有效技术。这里介绍的时钟是基于氮化硅（Si $_3$ N $_4$）微谐振器，支持光学频率梳组成的孤子脉冲在1太赫兹重复率。通过整个Si $_3$ N $_4$梳的电光相位调制，我们任意地在Si $_3$ N $_4$梳模式之间生成附加的CW模式;在操作上，这降低了脉冲训练重复频率，并且可以用于实现到微波域的OFD。我们的实验特征的剩余频率噪声的克尔微谐振器钟表的一部分，在$10^{17}$，这打开了可能性，使用克尔梳与高性能的光学时钟。此外，光子集成和1太赫兹分辨率的Si $_3$ N $_4$频率梳，使其有吸引力的宽带，低分辨率的液相吸收光谱，我们证明与近红外测量的水，脂质和有机溶剂。
