Frequency combs are revolutionizing optics, from telecommunications to astrophysics, but their complexity has been a roadblock.

Recent advancements in lithium tantalate technology have changed the game, creating a compact, user-friendly comb generator with incredible efficiency and bandwidth. This breakthrough could reshape fields like robotics and environmental monitoring, offering exciting new possibilities.

Frequency Combs in Modern Optics

In modern optics, frequency combs are essential tools that help measure light with extreme precision. They have enabled significant advancements in fields such as telecommunications, environmental monitoring, and astrophysics. However, creating compact and efficient frequency combs has long been a challenge—until now.

Electro-optic frequency combs, first introduced in 1993, showed great potential in generating optical combs using cascaded phase modulation. Despite this promise, their progress stalled due to high power requirements and limited bandwidth. As a result, the field shifted toward femtosecond lasers and Kerr soliton microcombs. While these technologies are effective, they come with complex tuning processes and high power demands, making them impractical for widespread use.

Recent developments in thin-film electro-optic integrated photonic circuits have reignited interest in electro-optic frequency combs, particularly with materials like lithium niobate. However, expanding the bandwidth while reducing power consumption has remained a major hurdle. Additionally, lithium niobate’s intrinsic birefringence—its tendency to split light beams—places a fundamental limit on the achievable bandwidth, restricting further progress.

A Breakthrough with Lithium Tantalate Technology

Scientists at EPFL, the Colorado School of Mines, and the China Academy of Science, have now tackled this by combining microwave and optical circuit designs on the newly developed lithium tantalate platform, compared with lithium niobate, the lithium tantalate features 17 times lower intrinsic birefringence. Led by Professor Tobias J. Kippenberg, the researchers developed an electro-optic frequency comb generator that achieves an unprecedented 450 nm spectral coverage with over 2000 comb lines. The breakthrough expands the device’s bandwidth and reduces microwave power requirements almost 20-fold compared to previous designs.

The team introduced an “integrated triply resonant” architecture, where three interacting fields—two optical and one microwave—resonate in harmony. This was achieved using a novel co-designed system that integrates monolithic microwave circuits with photonic components. By embedding a distributed coplanar waveguide resonator on lithium tantalate photonics integrated circuits, the team significantly improved microwave confinement and energy efficiency.

Compact Design and Enhanced Efficiency

The device’s compact size, fitting within a 1×1 cm² footprint, was made possible by leveraging lithium tantalate’s lower birefringence. This minimizes interference between light waves, which enables smooth and consistent frequency comb generation. Additionally, the device operates using a simple, free-running distributed feedback laser diode, making it far more user-friendly than its Kerr soliton counterparts.

The new comb generator’s ultra-broadband span, covering 450 nm, exceeds the limits of current electro-optic frequency comb technologies. It achieves this with stable operation across 90% of the free spectral range, eliminating the need for complex tuning mechanisms. This stability and simplicity open the door to practical, field-deployable applications.

Future Implications for Photonics and Beyond

The new device can be a paradigm shift in the world of photonics. With its robust design and compact footprint, it can impact areas like robotics, where precise laser ranging is crucial, and environmental monitoring, where accurate gas sensing is essential. Moreover, the success of this co-design methodology highlights the untapped potential of integrating microwave and photonic engineering for next-generation devices.

Reference: “Ultrabroadband integrated electro-optic frequency comb in lithium tantalate” by Junyin Zhang, Chengli Wang, Connor Denney, Johann Riemensberger, Grigory Lihachev, Jianqi Hu, Wil Kao, Terence Blésin, Nikolai Kuznetsov, Zihan Li, Mikhail Churaev, Xin Ou, Gabriel Santamaria-Botello and Tobias J. Kippenberg, 22 January 2025, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08354-4

All samples were fabricated in the EPFL Center of MicroNanoTechnology (CMi) and the Institute of Physics (IPHYS) cleanroom. The LTOI wafers were fabricated in Shanghai Novel Si Integration Technology (NSIT) and the SIMIT-CAS.