Astronomical optical frequency comb generation in nonlinear fibres and ring resonators: optimization studies

Boggio, J.M. Chávez; Fremberg, T.; Wysmolek, Mateusz; Sanyic, H.; Fernando, Harendra N. J.; Neumann, Jörg; Kracht, Dietmar; Haynes, Roger; Roth, Martin

doi:10.1117/12.925535

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Some of this light may then be evanescently coupled to a drop port to yield a frequency comb, which is potentially very useful for astronomical wavelength calibration. 67,68 Light may be also coupled back into the input port, where it is now out of phase with the input light, and therefore destructively interferes, creating a series of notches at the resonant wavelengths of the ring.…”

Section: Ring Resonatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speciality optical fibres for astronomy

Ellis

Bland-Hawthorn

2015

Micro-Structured and Specialty Optical Fibres IV

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Astrophotonics is a rapidly developing area of research which applies photonic technology to astronomical instrumentation. Such technology has the capability of significantly improving the sensitivity, calibration and stability of astronomical instruments, or indeed providing novel capabilities which are not possible using classical optics. We review the development and application of speciality fibres for astronomy, including multi-mode to single-mode converters, notch filters and frequency combs.In particular we focus on our development of instruments designed to filter atmospheric emission lines to enable much deeper spectroscopic observations in the near-infrared. These instruments employ two novel photonic technologies. First, we have developed complex aperiodic fibre Bragg gratings which filter over 100 irregularly spaced wavelengths in a single device, covering a bandwidth of over 200 nm. However, astronomical instruments require highly multi-mode fibres to enable sufficient coupling into the fibre, since atmospheric turbulence heavily distorts the wavefront. But photonic technologies such as fibre Bragg gratings, require single mode fibres. This problem is solved by the photonic lantern, which enables efficient coupling from a multi-mode fibre to an array of single-mode fibres and vice versa.We present the results of laboratory tests of these technologies and of on-sky experiments made using the first instruments to deploy these technologies on a telescope. These tests show that the fibre Bragg gratings suppress the night sky background by a factor of 9. Current instruments are limited by thermal and detector emission. Planned instruments should improved the background suppression even further, by optimising the design of the spectrograph for the properties of the photonic components.Finally we review ongoing research in astrophotonics, including multi-moded multicore fibre Bragg gratings, which enable multiple gratings to be written into the same device simultaneously, femtosecond direct-write photonic lanterns and Bragg gratings, and complex notch filters and frequency combs using microring resonators, and plans for future astrophotonic instrumentation.

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Section: Ring Resonatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speciality optical fibres for astronomy

Ellis

Bland-Hawthorn

2015

Micro-Structured and Specialty Optical Fibres IV

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“…Early on, two different platforms (and approaches) were numerically and experimentally investigated, targeting medium and low resolution spectrographs at astronomical facilities [35].…”

Section: Pic Ring Resonators In Astronomical Frequency Combs For Prec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Astrophotonics: photonic integrated circuits for astronomical instrumentation

Roth

Madhav

Stoll

et al. 2023

Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XXVII

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Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) are best known for their important role in the telecommunication sector, e.g. high speed communication devices in data centers. However, PIC also hold the promise for innovation in sectors like life science, medicine, sensing, automotive etc. The past two decades have seen efforts of utilizing PIC to enhance the performance of instrumentation for astronomical telescopes, perhaps the most spectacular example being the integrated optics beam combiner for the interferometer GRAVITY at the ESO Very Large Telescope. This instrument has enabled observations of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way at unprecedented angular resolution, eventually leading to the Nobel Price for Physics in 2020. Several groups worldwide are actively engaged in the emerging field of astrophotonics research, amongst them the innoFSPEC Center in Potsdam, Germany. We present results for a number of applications developed at innoFSPEC, notably PIC for integrated photonic spectrographs on the basis of arrayed waveguide gratings and the PAWS demonstrator (Potsdam Arrayed Waveguide Spectrograph), PIC-based ring resonators in astronomical frequency combs for precision wavelength calibration, discrete beam combiners (DBC) for large astronomical interferometers, as well as aperiodic fiber Bragg gratings for complex astronomical filters and their possible derivatives in PIC.

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“…The disadvantage is that in order to exploit the non-linear effects high power lasers and materials with highly non-linear properties must be used. This approach is being pursued in photonics research [57] and in astronomical applications [58].…”

Section: A1 Wavelength Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photonic ring resonator filters for astronomical OH suppression

Ellis¹,

Kuhlmann²,

Kuêhn³

et al. 2017

Opt. Express

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Ring resonators provide a means of filtering specific wavelengths from a waveguide, and optionally dropping the filtered wavelengths into a second waveguide. Both of these features are potentially useful for astronomical instruments.In this paper we focus on their use as notch filters to remove the signal from atmospheric OH emission lines from astronomical spectra, however we also briefly discuss their use as frequency combs for wavelength calibration and as drop filters for Doppler planet searches.We derive the design requirements for ring resonators for OH suppression from theory and finite difference time domain simulations. We find that rings with small radii (< 10 µm) are required to provide an adequate free spectral range, leading to high index contrast materials such as Si and Si 3 N 4 . Critically coupled rings with high self-coupling coefficients should provide the necessary Q factors, suppression depth, and throughput for efficient OH suppression.We report on our progress in fabricating both Si and Si 3 N 4 rings for OH suppression, and give results from preliminary laboratory tests. Our early devices show good control over the free spectral range and wavelength separation of multi-ring devices. The self-coupling coefficients are high (> 0.9), but further optimisation is required to achieve higher Q and deeper notches, with current devices having Q ≈ 4000 and ≈ 10 dB suppression. The overall prospects for the use of ring resonators in astronomical instruments is promising, provided efficient fibre-chip coupling can be achieved.

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Astronomical optical frequency comb generation in nonlinear fibres and ring resonators: optimization studies

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Speciality optical fibres for astronomy

Speciality optical fibres for astronomy

Astrophotonics: photonic integrated circuits for astronomical instrumentation

Photonic ring resonator filters for astronomical OH suppression

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