Dependence of a microresonator Kerr frequency comb on the pump linewidth

• Published in: Optics letters Vol. 42; no. 4; p. 779
• Main Authors: Liao, Peicheng, Bao, Changjing, Kordts, Arne, Karpov, Maxim, Pfeiffer, Martin H P, Zhang, Lin, Mohajerin-Ariaei, Amirhossein, Cao, Yinwen, Almaiman, Ahmed, Ziyadi, Morteza, Wilkinson, Steven R, Tur, Moshe, Kippenberg, Tobias J, Willner, Alan E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 15.02.2017
• ISSN: 1539-4794
• DOI: 10.1364/OL.42.000779

We experimentally investigate the dependence of Kerr comb generation, comb linewidth, and coherent system performance on the pump linewidth in a microresonator. We find that the generation of the primary comb can have a larger tolerance to the pump linewidth compared with that of the low-phase-noise comb. In addition, the linewidths of the generated combs are almost linearly dependent on the pump linewidth in the primary and low-phase-noise states. Furthermore, the optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty between the pump and generated Kerr combs in a coherent communication system is less than 0.2 dB in both the primary and low-phase-noise states, showing that Kerr frequency combs in these two states can have similar coherent system performance to the pump.