The search for Earth-like planets beyond our Solar System relies on extremely precise measurements of minute stellar radial-velocity shifts that indicate the presence of an exoplanet. These measurements are enabled by comparing a star's spectrum to a highly stable reference spectrum generated by an instrument known as an astrocomb. Astrocombs are ultra-precise optical reference systems used to calibrate astronomical spectrographs, enabling accurate and repeatable measurement of stellar absorption line frequencies across a broad spectral range.

Spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) atomic magnetometers are ultra-high-sensitivity magnetic field sensors that play an important role in the field of quantum precision measurement. Owing to their capability of detecting extremely weak magnetic fields with very high sensitivity, SERF magnetometers not only serve fundamental scientific research but are also applied in areas such as dark matter detection and material structure analysis. With the continuous development of ultra-weak magnetic field detection technologies, SERF magnetometers are gradually evolving toward miniaturization and integration, thereby demonstrating great potential in application scenarios such as biomagnetic measurements and geomagnetic navigation. They have also been verified for potential applications in the early diagnosis and prevention of cardiovascular and neurological diseases.

With the explosive growth in demand for high-speed, high-capacity communications in 5G/6G networks and fields such as military, satellite, and aerospace, phased arrays will continue to play an irreplaceable role in signal transmission, reception, and processing. Currently, the development demands of phased arrays are no longer limited to expanding the operating bandwidth and eliminating beam squint, but also include establishing user-oriented beamforming, achieving smaller cost of size, weight, and power (SWaP), and more efficient and flexible transceiver components.

The growing demand for highly stable microwave and millimeter-wave signals in wireless communications, phased-array radar, precision timing, and high-resolution imaging has made the realization of ultra-low phase-noise RF sources a critical technological challenge. Conventional electronic oscillators are fundamentally limited by material and device physics, leaving little room for further reduction in phase noise. Optical frequency division (OFD) offers an effective solution by transferring the exceptional stability of optical reference lasers to the microwave and millimeter-wave domains through optical frequency combs. With recent advances in integrated photonics and high-Q microresonators, chip-scale OFD oscillators have been successfully demonstrated. However, in most integrated OFD systems, stabilization of soliton microcombs relies on feedback control of the pump-laser frequency or power, which imposes limitations on control bandwidth, system complexity, and long-term stability. A key challenge therefore lies in achieving direct, high-bandwidth control of the soliton repetition rate at the chip level to simplify system architecture and enhance performance.