High-speed data transmission via wafer-scale aluminium nitride microresonator frequency comb

The rapid advancement of photonics is driven by growing need for high-capacity transmission in AI and data-center interconnects. Silicon photonics enables low-cost CMOS fabrication, but conventional materials lack second-order nonlinearity and rely on laser-diode arrays for multi-channel links, increasing cost and complexity. A frequency comb provides a single multi-wavelength source that simplifies the system. Meanwhile, aluminum nitride (AlN) is a CMOS-compatible material with wide transparency and significant second-order nonlinearity. Here, we demonstrate high-speed transmission using a frequency comb generated from a high-Q (>1×10⁶) AlN microring on an 8-inch CMOS-compatible platform. A pump laser is amplified, coupled into the resonator to generate comb, and a selected comb line is filtered, reamplified, and intensity modulated. Using a Mach–Zehnder modulator, we transmit 29-GBaud PAM4 and 30-Gbps NRZ signals over 10 km of fiber. The obtained BERs of 10⁻⁸ (PAM4) and 10⁻⁶ (NRZ) surpasses typical FEC limits. Open eye diagrams have high similarity to back-to-back results, demonstrating strong potential of AlN-based combs for scalable cost-effective high-speed communication.