Amplification and phase noise transfer of a Kerr microresonator soliton comb for low phase noise THz generation with a high signal-to-noise ratio

Abstract

Optical injection locking is implemented to faithfully transfer the phase noise of a dissipative Kerr microresonator soliton comb in addition to the amplification of the Kerr comb. Unlike Er-doped fiber and semiconductor optical amplifiers, the optical injection locking amplifies the comb mode without degrading the optical signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we show that the residual phase noise of the optical injection locking is sufficiently small to transfer the relative phase noise of comb modes (equivalent to the repetition frequency) of low phase noise Kerr combs, concluding that the optical injection locking of a Kerr comb can be an effective way to generate low phase noise THz waves with a high signal-to-noise ratio through an optical-to-electronic conversion of the Kerr comb.