Photonic Millimeter-wave Generation Beyond the Cavity Thermal Limit

Published

February 11, 2025

Author(s)

William Groman, Igor Kudelin, Takuma Nakamura, Yifan Liu, Charles McLemore, Franklyn Quinlan, Scott Diddams, Dahyeon Lee, Megan Kelleher, Joel Guo, Warren Jin, John Bowers

Abstract

With the next generation of telecommunications and radar/navigation upon us, moving from the microwave to the higher bandwidth, millimeter-wave domain has become ever relevant. Simultaneously, the burgeoning field of photonic integrated chips has yielded a path toward simplified and portable, low-noise mm-wave generation for these applications. By heterodyning two silicon photonic chip lasers, phase-locked to the same miniature F-P cavity, we demonstrate a simplified framework for generating low-noise millimeter-waves; mm-waves are generated with phase noise below the thermal limit of the reference cavity using already exisiting, integrable photonic technologies. In particular, we generate 94.5 GHz and 118.1 GHz millimeter-wave signals with phase noise of $-117$dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset, decreasing to $-120$ dBc/Hz at 40 kHz offset, a record low for photonic devices. With the capability of being integrated into a platform less than $10 \hspace3 pt}\textmL}$ in volume, this work illustrates the potential of low size, weight, and power (SWaP) photonic-sourced mm-waves.

Citation

Nature Photonics

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Millimeter-wave, Radar, Microwave, Photonics, Integrated Photonics, Fabry-Perot Cavity, Microresonator, Silicon Nitride

Citation

Groman, W. , Kudelin, I. , Nakamura, T. , Liu, Y. , McLemore, C. , Quinlan, F. , Diddams, S. , Lee, D. , Kelleher, M. , Guo, J. , Jin, W. and Bowers, J. (2025), Photonic Millimeter-wave Generation Beyond the Cavity Thermal Limit, Nature Photonics (Accessed October 8, 2025)