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Implemented on a Si₃N₄ microresonator, a multimodal locking architecture simultaneously stabilizes pump frequency, cavity resonance, and repetition rate, enabling robust and day-scale low-repetition-r...

Coherent frequency microcombs, generated in nonlinear high-Q microresonators and driven by a single continuous-wave laser, have enabled several scientific breakthroughs in the past decade, thanks to t...

Microresonator-based Kerr frequency combs (“Kerr microcombs”) constitute chip-scale frequency combs of broad spectral bandwidth and repetition rate ranging from gigahertz to terahertz. A critical appl...

Chip-scale integration of optical frequency combs, particularly soliton microcombs, enables miniaturized instrumentation for timekeeping, ranging, and spectroscopy. Although soliton microcombs have be...

Fully connected quantum networks, enabling simultaneous connection between every user, face scalability challenges despite being the most versatile and robust networking architecture. Researchers constructed a large-scale version of this network, guaranteeing user-to-user security even with an untrusted provider, using integrated soliton microcomb and photonic encoding chips.

Fully connected quantum networks, enabling simultaneous connection between every user, face scalability challenges despite being the most versatile and robust networking architecture. Researchers constructed a large-scale version of this network, guaranteeing user-to-user security even with an untrusted provider, using integrated soliton microcomb and photonic encoding chips.

Microcombs in normal-dispersion photonic crystal ring resonators (PhCRs) are a versatile building block for next-generation integrated photonic circuits, yet they inherently suffer from a directional bias that favors backward-propagating states. This necessitates bulky, non-integrated optical circulators for comb extraction, creating a significant bottleneck for full on-chip integration. In this work, we demonstrate a deterministic method to control and reverse this directionality through Side-mode Induced Forward Forcing (SIFF). By engineering auxiliary mode splittings on resonances adjacent to the pump, we show that the nonlinear dynamics can be steered to favor stable, forward-propagating platicon states. We establish an optimal synchronization condition between the pump and side-mode coupling rates that ensures forward-comb dominance across a wide parameter range. Our findings, validated both numerically and experimentally, provide a critical pathway for circulator-free, integrated normal-dispersion microcombs, offering a scalable architecture for compact telecommunications and sensing systems.

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Researchers have built a miniaturized microcomb-driven terahertz wireless communication system that's 90 times smaller than conventional chips to deliver record-breaking data-transfer speeds at ultrah...

Scientists in Japan have discovered a way to transmit data at a speed of 112 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a specific spectrum band that's vital for the build-out of next-generation 6G wireless networks. To achieve this breakthrough, the researchers developed a new kind of terahertz wireless communication system driven by microcombs — special photonic devices fitted onto microchips that generate optical frequencies for wireless networks. When used with high-order modulation techniques — advanced ways to enable higher data-transfer rates in limited bandwidth — the team delivered these blistering wireless communication speeds in the 560 gigahertz spectrum band. Achieving such speeds — at a frequency above 420 GHz for the first time — showed how this system can overcome the limitations of signal power and noise that plague conventional electronics at these ultrahigh frequencies, thereby limiting them to much slower data rates. The researchers outlined their findings May 16 in the journal Communications Engineering. "This result represents a major step toward practical 6G wireless systems and ultra-high-speed mobile backhaul," said Takeshi Yasui, a professor in Tokushima University's Institute of Post-LED Photonics and co-author of the study, said in a statement. Let there be light Although 5G wireless speeds are notably...