Subharmonic injection‐locked photonic integrated thin‐film lithium niobate optoelectronic oscillator

Integrated optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs) have emerged as pivotal enablers of compact, energy-efficient solutions for generating high-frequency radio-frequency (RF) signals with exceptional spectral purity - an essential demand in the advancement of radar and communication technologies. Yet, the quest for ultra-low phase noise near the carrier remains hampered by laser frequency instability and environmental fluctuations. In this work, we unveil the first photonic-integrated, high-order subharmonic injection-locked OEO realized on a thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform, seamlessly uniting a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and an add-drop microring resonator (MRR) in a monolithic architecture. By harnessing an external RF source operating at a fractional subharmonic (1/2<i>N</i>, with <i>N</i> = 1, 3, 5…) of the OEO's free-running frequency, our system achieves robust locking to the 2<i>N</i>-th harmonic of the injected signal, made possible through the beating of ±<i>N</i>-th order modulation sidebands - precisely selected by the dual resonances of the MRR - at the photodetector. We experimentally demonstrate the generation of 28.7 GHz signals via second- and sixth-order subharmonic injection locking, employing external RF injections at 14.35 GHz and 4.78 GHz, respectively. This yields an outstanding side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) exceeding 78 dB and remarkably low spurious emissions. Furthermore, the measured phase noise achieves values below -80 dBc/Hz at 100 Hz and below -115 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offsets from the 28.7 GHz carrier, delineating a new standard for integrated OEO performance.