Tunable microwave frequency comb generation via periodic relaxation oscillation in directly modulated laser

In this paper, a novel and simple generation scheme based on a directly modulated laser (DML) is proposed for tunable microwave frequency combs (MFCs). When the input modulated RF power is intentionally controlled to be sufficiently high to drive the DML into its nonlinear operating region periodically, relaxation oscillations will be excited in the same period. The modulated light from the DML is subsequently detected by a photodetector, and a special kind of microwave signal source can be optically produced and shows up in the form of MFC in the frequency domain. In the proof-of-concept experiment, tunable MFCs are demonstrated with the bandwidth of more than 25 GHz, the comb spacing of 0.5 ∼ 3 GHz, and the flatness of less than ± 2 dB with the frequency from 3 GHz to 18 GHz. The bandwidth of the generated MFC is in accordance with the relaxation oscillation frequency of the DML. The comb spacing is strictly equal to the frequency of the modulated RF signal and thus flexibly adjustable. The carrier-to-noise ratio can be up to 48 dB, and the single-sideband phase noise is measured to be lower than − 90 dBc/Hz@1 kHz for MFCs with comb spacings of 0.7 ∼ 3 GHz.