Thin-film lithium-niobate electro-optic platform for spectrally tailored dual-comb spectroscopy

Laser frequency comb generators on photonic chips open up the exciting prospect of integrated dual-comb microspectrometers. Amongst all nanophotonic platforms, the technology of low-loss thin-film lithium-niobate-on-insulator shows distinguishing features, such as the possibility to combine various optoelectronic and nonlinear optical functionalities that harness second- and third-order nonlinearities, and thus promises the fabrication of a fully on-chip instrument. Here, a critical step towards such achievement is demonstrated with an electro-optic microring-based dual-comb interferometer. Spectra centered at 191.5 THz and spanning 1.6 THz (53 cm −1 ) at a resolution of 10 GHz (0.33 cm −1 ) are obtained in a single measurement without requiring frequency scanning or moving parts. The frequency agility of the system enables spectrally-tailored multiplexed sensing, which allows for interrogation of non-adjacent spectral regions, here separated by 6.6 THz (220 cm −1 ), without compromising the signal-to-noise ratio. Our studies show that electro-optic-based nanophotonic technology holds much promise for new strategies of molecular sensing over broad spectral bandwidths.