Spectral Translation of Optical Frequency Combs with Optical Parametric Oscillation

Optical frequency combs have exhibited tremendous potential for rapid, highly sensitive measurements of atomic and molecular systems. However, there remains a strong need for optical frequency combs to be produced outside of the convenient near-infrared spectral region. Recently we have demonstrated two separate approaches for the spectral translation of electro-optic frequency combs, both of which rely upon optical parametric oscillation (OPO). The first utilizes silicon nitride microrings to perform nanophotonic OPO using <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\chi^{(3)}$</tex> nonlinearity [1]. On the other hand, the second approach exploits <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\chi^{(2)}$</tex> nonlinearity in a singly resonant, continuous wave OPO to produce high power mid-infrared frequency combs [2].