1916 Vol. 59, No.

7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics Research Article

Flat optical frequency comb generation based on

a dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator and a
single recirculation frequency shift loop
Dan Li, Shibao Wu,* Yu Liu, AND Yifeng Guo
Key Laboratory of Specialty Fiber Optics and Optical Access Networks, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
*Corresponding author: wushibao@shu.edu.cn

Received 6 November 2019; revised 11 January 2020; accepted 12 January 2020; posted 13 January 2020 (Doc. ID 381880);
published 21 February 2020

To generate a flat optical frequency comb (OFC), a new scheme based on a dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator
and a single recirculation frequency shift loop is proposed and analyzed. Compared with the traditional single loop
recirculation frequency shift method, the quantity of comb lines is doubled, and the comb flatness is better when the
number of cycles is the same. The theoretical analysis model is established, and the simulation results show that a
111-line OFC with frequency spacing of 10 GHz, flatness of 1.32 dB, and optical signal to noise ratio of 27.4 dB can
be obtained by adopting the proposed scheme. © 2020 Optical Society of America
https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.381880

1. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of communication, information
technology, and Internet of things, lots of fields, such as coher-
ent dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) [1],
optical arbitrary waveform generation [2], Nyquist-WDM
systems [3], photonic microwave signal processing [4], and
high-accuracy optical sensors [5] have been studied. In those
domains, the flat optical frequency comb (OFC) which can
provide a large amount of frequency-locked multicarriers has
widely been employed. In the past years, various methods have
been proposed to realize the OFC generation [6–10]. Among
these methods, recirculation frequency shift (RFS) has attracted
much attention because the number of comb-lines is flexible,
and the flatness is excellent. The RFS method can be roughly
divided into two kinds: frequency shifting in a single direc-
tion and frequency shifting in both directions from the center
frequency (i.e., the frequency of the seed light). The first kind
of RFS method is often based on a single loop structure with
SSB modulation [11]. The second kind of RFS method is often
based on a double loops structure with the SSB modulation
technique or the complementary frequency shifting technique
[12]. A major drawback of the RFS method is the accumulation
of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, in which noise
accumulation increases with the number of cycles. Therefore,
from the perspective of noise accumulation, a two loops struc-
ture is better than the single loop structure because the number
of required cycles based on the two loops structure can be halved
when the generated OFCs have the same amount of comb
lines. But, the two loops structure is relatively complicated and
uneconomical compared with the single loop structure.
In this paper, we propose a new recirculation frequency shift
scheme for OFC generation based on a dual-parallel Mach–
Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) and single loop structure,
which can achieve a frequency shift on both sides of the center
frequency in a single RFS loop. Compared with the tradi-
tional recirculation frequency shift method with a single loop
structure, the number of comb lines of the generated OFCs is
doubled when the number of cycles is the same, and the flatness
as well as optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) are better. The
system complexity of the proposed scheme is reduced, and the
cost is halved compared with the reported scheme based on dou-
ble RFS loop structure [12]. The proposed scheme can generate
high quality OFCs with low power fluctuation and large OSNR.
2. PRINCIPLE AND THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the OFC generator based on a
DPMZM and a single RFS loop. The main parts of the OFC
generator include seed light, a double-SSB generator (DSSBG),
and a RFS loop. The seed light provides an optical carrier to
the RFS loop, and the optical carrier determines the center fre-
quency of the generated OFC. The DSSBG consists of a radio
frequency (RF) source, a DPMZM driven by the RF signal,
a phase shifter (PS), and a polarization-maintaining optical
coupler (PMOC). The DPMZM consists of two sub-MZMs
(i.e., MZM1 and MZM2), and the two sub-MZMs are all
working in push-pull mode. There is a fixed phase difference
of π/2 between the RF driving signal of MZM1 and the RF

1559-128X/20/071916-08 Journal © 2020 Optical Society of America

 Research Article Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics 1917

driving signal of MZM2 provided by the phase shifter (PS). The where m = π · VVRF π
is the modulation index of the each sub-
frequency of the RF signal defines the frequency spacing of the MZM, ωm is the angular frequency of the RF signal, J n (m)
generated OFC. The DSSBG is used to achieve SSB modulation is nth- order Bessel function of the first kind, and Vπ is the
in two different frequency directions from the center frequency half-wave voltage of the sub-MZMs. VDC1 and VDC2 , which are
and output two symmetric SSB signals at two output ports of the direct-current (DC) bias voltage of MZM1 and MZM2,
the DSSBG, respectively. Two optical bandpass filters (OBFs) respectively, are all set to Vπ /2. VDC3 , which is used to introduce
are used to control the number of the desired comb lines on each a phase shift of π , is the DC bias voltage of the master MZM. In
frequency shifting direction. An optical combiner is used to order to only preserve the ±1st order harmonics and eliminate
combine the optical signals of two frequency shifting directions the effects of the higher order harmonics, small RF amplitude is
together. The erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is used taken. Then the formula in Eq. (2) can be simplified as
to compensate the transmission loss caused by related devices  
in the loop. The tunable optical delay line (TODL) is used E DSSBG−1
to eliminate the additional random phase noise in the comb E DSSBG−2
spectrum. The polarization controllers (PCs) are used to adjust √
J −1 (m) · exp[− j ωm t]
 
the optical polarization state to ensure the transmission of the 2
= · j · E 0 · exp[ j ωc t] ·
optical signals. Finally, the output of the optical combiner is 2 −J 1 (m) · j · exp[ j ωm t]
the coupling of the seed light and the modulated signal after √
multiple cycles, and the generated OFC is shown in the optical exp[ j (ωc − ωm )t]
 
2
=− · j · E 0 · J 1 (m) · .
spectrum analyzer (OSA). 2 j · exp[ j (ωc + ωm )t]
In the Fig. 1, E n (t) is the optical signal after n times circu- (3)
lation, E OC−n (t) is the coupled output of the seed light, and
E n (t), and E OC−out (t) is the final output signal that is dis- The above signals are filtered by OBF1 and OBF2, respectively,
played on the OSA. The input seed light of the RFS loop can be then combined by a combiner and amplified by EDFA. After
expressed as TODL and PC2, the first cycle is completed, and the optical
signal can be expressed as

√
2 j · E0 1 √
E 1 (t) = − · J 1 (m) · exp[ j ωc (t − τ )] · √ · G · L · {exp[− j ωm (t − τ )] ∗ h 1 (t − τ ) + j · exp[ j ωm (t − τ )] ∗ h 2 (t − τ )}
2 2
J 1 (m) √
= j · E 0 · exp[ j ωc (t − τ )] · (−1) · · G · L · {exp[− j ωm (t − τ )] ∗ h 1 (t − τ ) + j · exp[ j ωm (t − τ )] ∗ h 2 (t − τ )},
2
(4)

where G is the gain of EDFA, L is the loop loss, τ is the time

E in (t) = E 0 · exp[ j ωc t], (1) delay per round trip in the whole loop, h(t) is the time domain
response of OBF whose transfer function is supposed as a
where E 0 , ωc are the amplitude and angle frequency of the seed standard rectangular, which satisfies the condition
light, respectively. √
The first lower port output of the OC can
1, f c − (N − 1) · f m ≤ f < f c

be represented as 22 j · E in (t). The output signal at the two H1 ( f ) =
0, others,
outputs of the PMOC can be expressed as

 
E DSSBG−1
= E OC · HPMOC · HDPMZM
E DSSBG−2
√ √ √ # √  n h i h io 
VDC1 +VRF ·cos(ωm t) VDC2 +VRF ·cos(ωm t)
1
π π
"
2
2 j 22 2 2
· exp j · Vπ
+ exp − j · Vπ
= j · E in (t) 2
√ √ · n h
VDC1 +VRF ·sin(ωm t)
i h
VDC2 +VRF ·sin(ωm t)
io 
2 j 2
2
2
2 2 1
2
exp[ j π ] · exp j π · Vπ
+ exp − j π · Vπ

∞
 
j n π2
 π  π 
 · n=−∞ exp[ j nωm t] · J n (m) · exp · exp j 2 + (−1) · exp − j 2 ] 
" √ √ # 1 P   n
2 2
1 j 2
= j · E in (t) · 2
√ √
2
· ∞

2 j 22 2  1
−2 ·
P   π n
 π 
exp[ j nωm t] · J n (m) · exp j 2 + (−1) · exp − j 2

2
n=−∞
√
J −1 (m) · exp[− j ωm t] + J 3 (m) · exp[ j 3ωm t] + · · ·
 
2
= · j · E in (t) · ,
2 −J 1 (m) · j · exp[ j ωm t] − J −3 (m) · j · exp[− j 3ωm t] + · · ·
(2)
 1918 Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics Research Article

Fig. 1. Schematic of the scheme based on double-SSB generator and a single RFS loop. OC, optical combiner; MZM, Mach–Zehnder modulator;
RF, radio frequency; PS, phase shifter; PMOC, polarization-maintaining optical coupler; OBF, optical bandpass filter; EDFA, erbium-doped fiber
amplifier; TODL, tunable optical delay line; PC, polarization controller; OSA, optical spectrum analyzer.

and
1, f c < f ≤ f c + (N − 1) · f m

H2 ( f ) = (5)
0, others,
where N depends on the comb line number desired. After each cycle, two comb lines with new frequencies are added to the output spec-
trum. Under the condition of Eq. (2), the output signal of the OC obtained after N cycles can be expressed as follows:

√ √
2 2
E OC−out (t) = · E C W (t) + j · · E N (t)
2 2
√ √ N n
J 1 (m) √

2 2 X
= E 0 · exp[ j ωc t] − E0 exp[ j ωc (t − nτ )] · [−1] ·
n
· G·L
2 2 n=1
2
h h i i 
 exp j · n(n+1)

2
ω m τ · exp[− j nω m t] ∗ h 1 (t − τ ) ∗ · · · ∗ h 1 (t − nτ ) 

· h h i i . (6)
 + j n · exp − j n(n+1) ωm τ · exp[ j nωm t] ∗ h 2 (t − τ ) ∗ · · · ∗ h 2 (t − nτ ) 
 
2
√
As given in Eq. (6), to obtain a flat optical comb, it is necessary to satisfy the condition of [ J 1 (m)
2
· G · L]n = 1. Namely, when the
√
equation G · L · J 1 (m) = 2 is satisfied, the output spectrum is flat, otherwise the output spectrum shows a rising or falling trend from
the center frequency to both sides. Meanwhile, the ASE noise power introduced by the EDFA and the effect of the ASE noise on OSNR
after N times circulation can be represented as follows [13]:
N · Fn · (G − 1) · h · f · Bs
PASE−Nth = S( f ) · Bs = , (7)
2

Psignal
 
OSNRASE = 10 · log
Pnoise

2 · G · PSE · P0 · λ
 
= 10 · log
N · Fn · (G − 1) · h · f · Bs

2 · PSE · P0 · λ
 
≈ 10 · log , (8)
N · Fn · h · f · Bs
where PASE−Nth is the ASE noise power in the Nth channel (corresponding to Nth comb line), Bs which equals f m is channel spacing,
h is the Planck’s constant, f is the frequency of the Nth carrier, PSE is power shifted efficiency, Fn is the noise figure, and λ and P0 are
wavelength and power of the seed light, respectively. S( f ) stands for the noise power spectral density. Eq. (7) indicates that the noise
power generated after N cycles is superimposed on the Nth carrier. Eq. (8) is used to evaluate the noise characteristics of each channel.
As N or Fn increases, the OSNR will decrease, and the OFC flatness will deteriorate due to the noise accumulation.
 Research Article Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics 1919

Due to the optical filters in the RFS loop satisfying Eq. (5), Eq. (6) can be simplified in the frequency domain as
√ √ N n
J 1 (m) √
  
2 2 X n(n + 1)
E OC−out (ω) = E 0 · δ(ω − ωc ) − E0 · exp[− j nωc τ ] · exp − j ωτ · [−1] ·
n
· G · L · δ(ω − ωc )
2 2 n=1
2 2
    
n(n + 1) n(n + 1)
∗ exp j ωm τ · [δ(ω + ωm ) ∗ · · · ∗ δ(ω + ωm )] + j n · exp − j · ωm τ
2 2

·[δ(ω − ωm ) ∗ · · · ∗ δ(ω − ωm )]

√ √ N n
J 1 (m) √
  
2 2 X n(n + 1)
= E 0 · δ(ω − ωc ) − E0 · exp[− j nωc τ ] · exp − j ωτ · [−1] ·
n
· G·L
2 2 n=1
2 2
     
n(n + 1) n(n + 1)
· exp j ωm τ · [δ(ω − ωc + nωm )] + j n · exp − j · ωm τ · [δ(ω − ωc − nωm )] .
2 2
(9)

As can be seen from Eq. (9), the amplitude of each comb

line is also related to the loop delay τ . With the seed carrier
recirculating, the random phase noise is continuously super-
imposed and converted into intensity noise onto the generated
comb lines, which will cause power fluctuation in the output
spectrum. When a TODL, which can adjust the delay of the
entire loop, is added to the RFS loop, and the delay τ satis-
fies the condition ωm τ = 2kπ and ωc τ = 2mπ (k and m are
nonzero integers) simultaneously, the effect of phase noise of
each comb line will be eliminated. According to Eq. (9), it can
also be seen that the frequency spacing of the generated OFC
can be adjusted by changing the angular frequency ωm of RF
signal, this illustrates the tunability of the generated OFC in our
scheme.
3. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
To analyze the performance of the proposed scheme of OFC
generation, we performed the simulation with the setup shown
in Fig. 1 by using the VPItransmissionMaker commercial soft-
ware. In the simulation, the C W operating at f c = 193.1 THz
with the power of 0 dBm and the line-width of 1 MHz. The
frequency of the RF driving signal is 10 GHz, and the half-wave
voltage of each MZM is 3.5 V. The modulation index and DC
bias of each sub-MZM are set to 0.4 and 1.75 V, respectively.
The DC bias of the main MZM VDC3 is set to 3.5 V. The insert
loss and extinction ratio of each sub-MZM are 7 dB and 30 dB,
respectively. The noise figure and gain of the EDFA in the loop
is set to 4 dB and 27.1 dB, respectively. Each OBF is an ideal
rectangle filter with the desired tunable bandwidth and a stop-
band attenuation of 40 dB. After circulating 10 times and 20
times, we can get a 21-line OFC with the flatness of 0.81 dB and
a 41-line OFC with the flatness of 0.92 dB, respectively. The
optical spectra of the generated OFCs are shown in Figs. 2(a)
and 2(c). In order to see the flatness of the generated OFC
more clearly, we enlarge the comb top of Figs. 2(a) and 2(c),
as shown in Figs. 2(b) and 2(d), respectively. Obviously, the
power fluctuation of the latter is higher than that of the former.
Assume that total insertion loss in the loop is 7 dB, Table 1
shows the 41-line spectrum obtained at different EDFA gain
values. It can be seen that although OSNR increases as gain
increases, there is an ideal gain value of 27.10 dB with which the
flatness of the generated OFC is the best. The output spectrum
is no longer flat when the gain value is smaller or larger than the
ideal gain.
Table 2 shows the comb performance after the seed light
cycles different times. It can be seen that the number of comb
lines increases, and the flatness deteriorates as the number of
cycles increases.
Figure 3 shows the flatness and the OSNR of a 111-line OFC
as a function of noise figure Fn which varies from 0 dB to 7 dB.
Obviously, the trendus of OSNR and flatness are in good agree-
ment with the theoretical analysis.
In practice, the flatness and OSNR of the generated OFC
may be affected by DC bias drift (i.e., voltage deviation from the
desired value) of the DPMZM, so we have studied the influence
of bias drift by numerical simulation. Here, taking the 111-line
OFC as an example, for the convenience of study, we suppose
that all the DC bias drifts of the DPMZM are identical and
drift to the same direction. The simulation results are shown in
Fig. 4. It can be seen that when the DC bias deviates from the
desired value, the flatness and OSNR become worse. When the
bias drift is between −6 mV and 6 mV, the variations of flatness
and OSNR are within 0.29 dB and 1.95 dB, respectively. The
influence of the bias drift in our scheme is not obvious when the
bias drift is within several millivolts.
Figure 5(a) shows the output spectrum with serious power
fluctuation after cycling 50 times without TODL in the loop.
The flatness of the generated OFC is 10.93 dB. When TODL
is added to the loop, and the value of τ is set to 6.28 ns to simul-
taneously satisfy the equations ωm τ = 2kπ and ωc τ = 2mπ ,
the generated OFC is shown in Fig. 5(b), and the flatness of the
OFC is 1.28 dB. The flatness is improved buy 9.65 dB. The
result indicates that TODL has a positive effect on the flatness of
the generated OFC.
 1920 Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics Research Article

Fig. 2. (a) and (b) Output spectrum of 21 lines; (c) and (d) 41 lines.

Table 1. Performance of 41-Line Comb at Different

EDFA Gain Values
Gain (dB) 26.95 27.00 27.05 27.10 27.15 27.20 27.25
Flatness (dB) 3.37 2.38 1.50 0.92 1.34 2.13 3.09
OSNR (dB) 29.33 29.79 30.18 30.85 31.17 31.48 31.73

Table 2. Number of Comb Lines and the Flatness

Under Different Cycle Times
Number of cycles 5 15 25 35 45 55
Number of comb lines 11 31 51 71 91 111
Flatness (dB) 0.74 0.86 1.08 1.19 1.23 1.32

The variations of flatness and OSNR for different frequency

spacing between the comb lines is also investigated. Table 3
shows the flatness and OSNR of the generated 101-line OFC at
different RF frequencies with the TODL in the loop. It can be
seen that the fluctuation of flatness and OSNR is not obvious
when the frequency spacing changes.
Fig. 3. Flatness and OSNR versus noise figure Fn .
In addition, the OFC performance comparison between our
scheme in this paper and other schemes utilizing RFS loops
to generate an OFC is made. The scheme in Ref. [12] is based

Fig. 4. Influence of bias drifts on the flatness and OSNR of 111-line OFC: (a) flatness changes with bias drifts, and (b) OSNR changes with bias
drifts.
 Research Article Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics 1921

structure which is simpler when compared with the schemes

based on a double RFS loop structure [12,14].

4. OFC GENERATION BASED ON THE

PROPOSED SCHEME WITH THREE-CARRIER
LIGHT SOURCE
As mentioned in Section 2, there is a phenomenon of noise accu-
mulation in the recirculation frequency shift generator. When
an OFC with a large number of comb lines is required, the seed
light needs to accomplish many cycles in the RFS loop, so that
the noise accumulation becomes severe. In order to reduce the
impact of the noise accumulation, here we use a three-carrier
light source as the seed light for the RFS loop shown in the
Fig. 1; the light source is based on a phase modulator (PM). The
noise accumulation of the system can be well reduced due to
the reduction of the number of cycles when the same number
of comb lines is required. The three-carrier light source is based
Fig. 5. Output spectrum after cycling 50 times: (a) without TODL
on a phase modulator (PM), and the setup is shown in Fig. 6(a).
in the loop, (b) TODL is added in the loop.
The output of PM can be written as

VRF · sin ωRF t

 
E out (t) = E in (t) · exp j π ·
Table 3. Flatness and OSNR of the Generated Vπ
101-line OFC at Different RF Frequencies ∞
π · VRF
X  
f m /GHz 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 15 17.5 20 = E in (t) · Jn · exp[ j nωRF t]
Flatness/dB 1.37 1.30 1.31 1.28 1.28 1.39 1.36 1.38 n=−∞
Vπ
OSNR/dB 28.9 29.1 28.7 29.2 29.0 28.7 28.9 28.6
∞
X
= E 0 · exp[ j (ωc t + nωRF t)] · J n (m), (10)
on the structure of two unidirectional loops. The modulation n=−∞

index, extinction ratio, and frequency spacing were set to 0.4,
40 dB, and 12.5 GHz, respectively. Finally, a 104-line OFC with
the flatness of about 3.5 dB and the OSNR of 17 dB was gener-
ated. According to Table 3, with the same modulation index and
frequency spacing and with 30 dB MZM extinction ratio, our
scheme can generate a 101-line OFC with the flatness of 1.28 dB
and the OSNR of 29.0 dB. The scheme proposed in Ref. [14]
can generate a 178-line OFC with the flatness of 3 dB and the
OSNR of 20 dB; by using the scheme proposed in this paper, we
let the seed light cycle 89 times, then a 179-line OFC with the
flatness of 1.93 dB and the OSNR of 25.7 dB is obtained. The
scheme proposed in Ref. [15] can generate a 100-line OFC with
the flatness of 6.48 dB and the OSNR of 16.95 dB when the seed
light cycles 99 times in the loop; in our scheme, a 101-line OFC
can be obtained with the flatness of 1.28 dB and the OSNR of
29.2 dB when the seed light only cycles 50 times in the loop.
In addition, our proposed scheme adopts a single RFS loop
where E 0 is the amplitude of CW, ωRF is the angular fre-
quency of RF signal which is applied to the PM, and Vπ and
m = π · VVRF π
are the half-wave voltage and the modulation index
of the PM, respectively. A flat three-carrier spectrum can be
obtained by setting appropriate parameters of the RF driving
signal. The output of three-carrier light can be written as
E 3−carrier (t) = A · exp[ j ωc t] · − exp[− j ωRF t] + 1

+ exp[ j ωRF t] ,
(11)
where A = E 0 · J 0 (m) and ωRF are the amplitude and angular
frequency spacing of three-carrier light, respectively. Since the
phase modulator is not affected by the DC bias, the output
power fluctuation of the generated three-carrier light can be very
small. The output spectrum of three-carrier light is shown in
Fig. 6(b).

Fig. 6. (a) Concept setup for three-carrier generator based on phase modulator, (b) three-carrier optical spectrum with the frequency spacing of
4 GHz.
 1922 Vol. 59, No. 7 / 1 March 2020 / Applied Optics Research Article

According to Eq. (9), when the three-carrier is used as seed light, after the seed light cycles N times in the loop, the output signal of the
OC in Fig. 1 can be c domain as
√ √ N  
2 2 X n(n + 1)
E OC−out (ω) = A · [δ(ω − ωc ) − δ(ω − ωc + ωRF ) + δ(ω − ωc − ωRF )] − A· exp − j ωτ · [−1]n
2 2 n=1
2
n
J 1 (m) √

· exp[− j nωc τ ] · δ(ω − ωc ) − exp[− j n(ωc − ωRF )τ ] · δ(ω − ωc + ωRF )

· · G·L
2
 h i 
 exp j n(n+1)
2
ωm τ · [δ(ω + ωm ) ∗ · · · ∗ δ(ω + ωm )] 
+ exp[− j n(ωc + ωRF )τ ] · δ(ω − ωc − ωRF ) ∗ h i
 + j n · exp − j n(n+1) · ω τ · [δ(ω − ω ) ∗ · · · ∗ δ(ω − ω )] 
2 m m m

√ √ N  
2 2 X n(n + 1)
= A · [δ(ω − ωc ) − δ(ω − ωc + ωRF ) + δ(ω − ωc − ωRF )] − A· exp − j ωτ · [−1]n
2 2 n=1
2
n
J 1 (m) √

· · G·L
2
 h i  


 exp j n(n+1)
2
· 3ω RF τ · exp[− j nω c τ ] · δ(ω − ω c + 3nωRF ) − exp[− j n(ωc − ω RF )τ ] 


 
 ·δ(ω − ω + (3n + 1) · ω ) + exp[− j n(ω + ω )τ ] · δ(ω − ω + (3n − 1) · ω ) + j n 
 
c RF c RF c RF
· h i  ,
 · exp − j n(n+1) · 3ωRF τ · exp[− j nωc τ ] · δ(ω − ωc − 3nωRF ) − exp[− j n(ωc − ωRF )τ ] 
 

 2 

·δ(ω − ωc − (3n − 1) · ωRF ) + exp[− j n(ωc + ωRF )τ ] · δ(ω − ωc − (3n + 1) · ωRF )

 

(12)

where ωm represents the angular frequency of the RF signal

applied to the DPMZM in the loop and satisfies the condition Figure 8 shows the generated OFC with 111 comb lines. The
of ωm = 3ωRF . spectrum shown in Fig. 8(a) and Fig. 8(b) are obtained based
Under the premise that the number of comb lines required
on a single carrier light source and three-carrier light source,
is the same, when the three-carrier source is injected into
respectively. Taking the 55th comb line from the center in the
the proposed RFS loop, the number of cycles will reduce
spectrum as an example, the signal to noise ratio is 27.4 dB when
to about one-third compared to the single carrier source,
as is shown in Fig. 7. The blue lines represent the number
of cycles corresponding to the left number axis, and the red
lines represent the flatness corresponding to the right num-
ber axis. It can also be seen that the flatness of the generated
OFC based on three-carrier light is obviously improved.

Fig. 7. Flatness and number of required cycles versus the number of Fig. 8. OFC with 111 lines when the light source is (a) single carrier,
generated comb lines. and (b) three-carrier.
 Research Article
the single carrier light source is used, and the signal to noise ratio
is 31.4 dB when the three-carrier light source is used.
5. CONCLUSION
We propose a new scheme for flat optical frequency comb gen-
eration based on a recirculation frequency shift technique. The
proposed scheme is studied by theoretical analysis and simu-
lation. The simulation results show that a high-quality optical
frequency comb with up to hundreds of comb lines can be
obtained, which are in agreement with the theoretical analysis.
The proposed scheme has a cost-effective structure and good
flatness compared with the traditional recirculation frequency
shift method. In addition, the performance of optical frequency
comb can be further improved by increasing the number of
source carriers.
Funding. National Natural Science Foundation of China
(61601277, 61601279); Shanghai Science and Technology
Development Funds (15530500600, 16511104100,
16YF1403900, 17010500400, 18511103400).
Disclosures. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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