Millimetre-wave (mmWave) technology continues to draw great interest due to its broad applications in wireless communications, radar, and spectroscopy. Compared to pure electronic solutions, photonic-based mmWave generation provides wide bandwidth, low power dissipation, and remoting through low-loss fibres. However, at high frequencies, two major challenges exist for the photonic system: the power roll-off of the photodiode, and the large signal linewidth derived directly from the lasers. Here, we demonstrate a new photonic mmWave platform combining integrated microresonator solitons and high-speed photodiodes to address the challenges in both power and coherence. The solitons, being inherently mode-locked, are measured to provide 5.8 dB additional gain through constructive interference among mmWave beatnotes, and the absolute mmWave power approaches the theoretical limit of conventional heterodyne detection at 100 GHz. In our free-running system, the soliton is capable of reducing the mmWave linewidth by two orders of magnitude from that of the pump laser. Our work leverages microresonator solitons and high-speed modified uni-traveling carrier photodiodes to provide a viable path to chip-scale, high-power, low-noise, high-frequency sources for mmWave applications.

毫米波（mmWave）技术由于在无线通信，雷达和光谱学中的广泛应用而继续引起人们的极大兴趣。与纯电子解决方案相比，基于光子的mmWave生成可提供宽带宽，低功耗以及通过低损耗光纤进行远程传输的功能。但是，在高频下，光子系统面临两个主要挑战：光电二极管的功率衰减，以及直接从激光器获得的大信号线宽。在这里，我们演示了一个新的集成了微谐振器孤子和高速光电二极管的mmWave光子平台，以应对功率和相干性方面的挑战。固有地锁模的孤子经测量可通过mmWave节拍音之间的相长干涉提供5.8 dB的额外增益，绝对毫米波功率接近100 GHz时传统外差检测的理论极限。在我们的自由运行系统中，孤子能够将mmWave线宽比泵浦激光器的线宽减小两个数量级。我们的工作利用微谐振器孤子和高速修改的单程载波光电二极管为mmWave应用提供了通往芯片级，高功率，低噪声，高频源的可行途径。