Controllable kerr and raman-kerr frequency combs in functionalized microsphere resonators

Abstract

Optical frequency comb (OFC) based on the whispering-gallery-mode microresonator has various potential applications in fundamental and applied areas. Once the solid microresonator is fabricated, its structure parameters are generally unchanged. Therefore, realizing the tunability of the microresonator OFC is an important precondition for many applications. In this work, we proposed and demonstrated the tunable Kerr and Raman-Kerr frequency combs using the ultrahigh-quality-factor (Q) functionalized silica microsphere resonators, which are coated with iron oxide nanoparticles on their end surfaces. The functionalized microsphere resonator possesses Q factors over 108 and large all-optical tunability due to the excellent photothermal performance of the iron oxide nanoparticles. We realized a Kerr frequency comb with an ultralow threshold of 0.42 mW and a comb line tuning range of 0.8 nm by feeding the control light into the hybrid microsphere resonator through its fiber stem. Furthermore, in order to broaden the comb span, we realized a Raman-Kerr frequency comb with a span of about 164 nm. Meanwhile, we also obtained a comb line tuning range of 2.67 nm for the Raman-Kerr frequency comb. This work could find potential applications in wavelength-division multiplexed coherent communications and optical frequency synthesis.