UC Santa Barbara

Coherent optics has profoundly impacted diverse applications ranging from communications, LiDAR to quantum computations. However, developing coherent systems in integrated photonics comes at great expense in hardware integration and energy efficiency. Here we demonstrate a high-coherence parallelization strategy for advanced integrated coherent systems at minimal cost. By using a self-injection locked microcomb to injection lock distributed feedback lasers, we achieve a record high on-chip gain of 60 dB with no degradation in coherence. This strategy enables highly coherent channels with linewidths down to 10 Hz and power over 20 dBm. The overall electrical-to-optical efficiency reaches 19%, comparable to that of advanced semiconductor lasers. This method supports a silicon photonic communication link with an unprecedented data rate beyond 60 Tbit/s and reduces phase-related DSP consumption by 99.99999% compared to traditional III-V laser pump schemes. This work paves the way for realizing scalable, high-performance coherent integrated photonic systems, potentially benefiting numerous applications.