Broadband photonic RF channelizer based on micro-combs

In this paper, we first employ CMOS-compatible integrated optical combs to demonstrate a broadband RF channelizer. By using an on-chip nonlinear micro-ring resonator, a broadband 200GHz-spacing Kerr comb with a large number of comb lines are generated, providing a record large number of wavelength channels (over 60 in the C- and L- band) as well as over 100GHz potential RF operation bandwidth for RF channelizers with greatly reduced size, potential cost, and complexity. Record-high spectral slice resolution of 124.94 MHz is achieved through an on-chip MRR featuring a high Q factor up to 1.549×106. As a result, broadband channelization of RF frequencies ranging from 1.7 GHz to 19 GHz is experimentally demonstrated, verifying our approach's feasibility and effectiveness towards the realization of broadband RF channelizer with large channel number and high resolution, as well as reduced cost and footprint.