Ultralow Noise Oscillator Technologies

micro Fabry-Perot

Scalable precision platforms for metrology, clocks, and quantum systems

Transforming high-performance lab-scale atomic clocks, quantum atomic sensors, and oscillators systems into scalable, chip-integrated technologies remains critical grand challenge facing the field of integrated photonics. At the heart of these technologies are vacuum-gap reference cavities—devices that stabilize the frequency of lasers and oscillators by storing electromagnetic energy almost entirely in vacuum, avoiding sources of material noise suffered by dielectric resonators. However, such vacuum-gap reference cavities have been bulky and complex, preventing their use in integrated technologies.

In collaboration with NIST, our team has developed a new generation of vacuum-gap cavities that eliminate these material-induced instabilities by storing optical energy in vacuum. Using a scalable microfabrication process, we’ve demonstrated compact, chip-compatible reference cavities that offer orders-of-magnitude improvement in frequency stability—unlocking new possibilities for low-phase-noise microwave oscillators, precision frequency metrology, and next-generation atomic clocks.

To enable full system integration, we are also develop strategies to interface these cavities with photonic circuits, using both active stabilization techniques like Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) locking and passive approaches such as self-injection locking. These advances form the foundation for a new class of photonic systems that combine compactness, robustness, and lab-grade performance for fieldable quantum and timing applications.

Related Papers

Dual Laser Self-Injection Locking to a Micro Fabry-Perot for Low Phase Noise Millimeter-wave Generation
William Groman, Naijun Jin, Haotian Cheng, Dylan Meyer, Matthew Heyrich, Yifan Liu, Alexander Lind, Charles A. McLemore, Franklyn Quinlan, Peter Rakich, Scott A. Diddams
arXiv:2504.15361

Harnessing micro-Fabry-Perot reference cavities in photonic integrated circuits
Haotian Cheng, Chao Xiang, Naijun Jin, Igor Kudelin, Joel Guo, Matthew Heyrich, Yifan Liu, Jonathan Peters, Qing-Xin Ji, Yishu Zhou, Kerry J. Vahala, Franklyn Quinlan, Scott A. Diddams, John E. Bowers, Peter T. Rakich
arXiv:2410.01095

Ultrastable vacuum-gap Fabry–Perot cavities operated in air
Yifan Liu, Naijun Jin, Dahyeon Lee, Charles McLemore, Takuma Nakamura, Megan Kelleher, Haotian Cheng, Susan Schima, Nazanin Hoghooghi, Scott Diddams, Peter Rakich, Franklyn Quinlan
Optica, Vol. 11, Issue 9, pp. 1205–1211

Fiber-coupled 2 mL vacuum-gap Fabry–Perot reference cavity for portable laser stabilization
Charles A. McLemore, Naijun Jin, Megan L. Kelleher, Yizhi Luo, Dahyeon Lee, Yifan Liu, Takuma Nakamura, David Mason, Peter Rakich, Scott A. Diddams, Franklyn Quinlan
Optics Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 16, pp. 4737–4740

Photonic chip-based low-noise microwave oscillator
Igor Kudelin, William Groman, Qing-Xin Ji, Joel Guo, Megan L. Kelleher, Dahyeon Lee, Takuma Nakamura, Charles A. McLemore, Pedram Shirmohammadi, Samin Hanifi, Haotian Cheng, Naijun Jin, Lue Wu, Samuel Halladay, Yizhi Luo, Zhaowei Dai, Warren Jin, Junwu Bai, Yifan Liu, Wei Zhang, Chao Xiang, Lin Chang, Vladimir Iltchenko, Owen Miller, Andrey Matsko, Steven M. Bowers, Peter T. Rakich, Joe C. Campbell, John E. Bowers, Kerry J. Vahala, Franklyn Quinlan, Scott A. Diddams
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07058-z

Low-noise microwave generation with an air-gap optical reference cavity
Yifan Liu, Dahyeon Lee, Takuma Nakamura, Naijun Jin, Haotian Cheng, Megan L. Kelleher, Charles A. McLemore, Igor Kudelin, William Groman, Scott A. Diddams, Peter T. Rakich, Franklyn Quinlan
APL Photonics, 9, 010806 (2024)

A novel approach to interface high-Q Fabry–Pérot resonators with photonic circuits
Haotian Cheng, Naijun Jin, Zhaowei Dai, Chao Xiang, Joel Guo, Yishu Zhou, Scott A. Diddams, Franklyn Quinlan, John Bowers, Owen Miller, Peter Rakich
APL Photonics, 8, 116105 (2023)

Miniaturizing Ultrastable Electromagnetic Oscillators: Sub-Frequency Instability from a Centimeter-Scale Fabry–Perot Cavity
Charles A. McLemore, Naijun Jin, Megan L. Kelleher, James P. Hendrie, David Mason, Yizhi Luo, Dahyeon Lee, Peter Rakich, Scott A. Diddams, Franklyn Quinlan
Phys. Rev. Applied 18, 054054 (2022)

Chip-based laser with 1-hertz integrated linewidth
Joel Guo, Charles A. McLemore, Chao Xiang, Dahyeon Lee, Lue Wu, Warren Jin, Megan Kelleher, Naijun Jin, David Mason, Lin Chang, Avi Feshali, Mario Paniccia, Peter T. Rakich, Kerry J. Vahala, Scott A. Diddams, Franklyn Quinlan, John E. Bowers
Science Advances, Vol. 8, Issue 40, eabp9006 (2022)
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp9006

Micro-fabricated mirrors with finesse exceeding one million
Naijun Jin, Charles A. McLemore, David Mason, James P. Hendrie, Yizhi Luo, Megan L. Kelleher, Prashanta Kharel, Franklyn Quinlan, Scott A. Diddams, Peter T. Rakich
Optica, Vol. 9, Issue 9, pp. 965–972 (2022)

Ultralow 0.034 dB/m loss wafer-scale integrated photonics realizing 720 million Q and 380 μW threshold Brillouin lasing
Kaikai Liu, Naijun Jin, Haotian Cheng, Nitesh Chauhan, Matthew W. Puckett, Karl D. Nelson, Ryan O. Behunin, Peter T. Rakich, Daniel J. Blumenthal
Optics Letters, Vol. 47, Issue 7, pp. 1855–1858 (2022)

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