SPP 2314 - MLL-basierte Integrierte THz Frequenz-Synthesizers (MINTS) Phase 2

Overarching goal of the project MINTS (phase 1 and 2) is to investigate and demonstrate electronic-photonic THz frequency synthesizer architectures, which conform to the requirements of integration in silicon photonics and Indium Phosphite (InP) photonic technology. Improvement in phase noise performance of the electronic-photonic THz synthesizers is achieved by locking electronic or photonic oscillators onto an optical reference, i.e. a low-jitter mode locked laser (MLL) or optical frequency comb (OFC), thus enabling miniaturized THz frequency synthesizers with exceptionally low phase noise. The miniaturization of the MLL or OFC itself is not in the focus of the MINTS project. In phase 2 of the project the focus will be on further integration, miniaturization, improvement and validation of the concepts and devices developed during phase 1. Novel material components are proposed to achieve low phase noise when using OIL. The integration of optical narrow bandwidth RF bandpass filter is proposed. Low phase noise lasers will be developed to support an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL) in a low phase noise continuous tunable THz signal generation scheme. Already in phase 1 we demonstrated an otto-electronic phase-locked loop (OEPLL) in which an electronic oscillator is locked to an MLL pulse train by means of balanced optical microwave phase detector (BOMPD). In phase 2 the phase noise of OEPLL and OPLL will be improved using novel techniques such as high-order harmonics generation in the feedback and better lasers. A highly-integrated THz OEPLL will be implemented using hybrid integration of a silicon photonic BOMPD chip and a SiGe THz emitter chip with on-chip 10 GHz VCO and 300 GHz frequency multiplier to allow for a miniaturized ultra-low phase noise THz source.