Generation of very flat optical frequency combs from continuous-wave lasers using cascaded intensity and phase modulators driven by tailored radio frequency waveforms

摘要

We demonstrate a scheme, based on a cascade of lithium niobate intensity andphase modulators driven by specially tailored radio frequency waveforms togenerate an optical frequency comb with very high spectral flatness. In thiswork we demonstrate a 10 GHz comb with ~40 lines with spectral power variationbelow 1-dB and ~60 lines in total. The number of lines that can be generated islimited by the power handling capability of the phase modulator, and this canbe scaled without compromising the spectral flatness. Furthermore, the spectralphase of the generated combs in our scheme is almost purely quadratic which, aswe will demonstrate, allows for very high quality pulse compression using onlysingle mode fiber.