title: Coherent terabit communications with microresonator Kerr frequency combs.
abstract: Optical frequency combs have the potential to revolutionize terabit communications1. Generation of Kerr combs in nonlinear microresonators2represents a particularly promising option3enabling line spacings of tens of GHz. However, such combs may exhibit strong phase noise4-6, which has made high-speed data transmission impossible up to now. Here we demonstrate that systematic adjustment of pump conditions for low phase noise4,7-9enables coherent data transmission with advanced modulation formats that pose stringent requirements on the spectral purity of the comb. In a first experiment, we encode a data stream of 392 Gbit/s on a Kerr comb using quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM). A second experiment demonstrates feedback-stabilization of the comb and transmission of a 1.44 Tbit/s data stream over up to 300 km. The results show that Kerr combs meet the highly demanding requirements of coherent communications and thus offer an attractive solution towards chip-scale terabit/s transceivers.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Joerg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pfeifle
authors.affiliation: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Victor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Brasch
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lauermann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Yimin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wegner
authors.affiliation: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Herr
authors.affiliation: Menlo Systems GmbH, 82152 Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hartinger
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schindler
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Jingshi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hillerkuss
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmogrow
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudius
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weimann
authors.affiliation: Menlo Systems GmbH, 82152 Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Holzwarth
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Freude
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Juerg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leuthold
authors.affiliation: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tobias J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Kippenberg
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) and Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koos