Photonic chip-based resonant supercontinuum via pulse-driven Kerr microresonator solitons

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.403302
• Publication Date: 2021-04-16T01:30:50Z
• Authors: Miles H. Anderson; Romain Bouchand; Junqiu Liu; Wenle Weng; Ewelina Obrzud; Tobias Herr; Tobias J. Kippenberg
• Keywords: Supercontinuum; Picosecond

Supercontinuum generation and soliton microcomb formation both represent key techniques for the of coherent, ultrabroad optical frequency combs, enabling RF-to-optical link. Coherent supercontinuum typically relies on ultrashort pulses with kilowatt peak power as a source, so are often restricted to repetition rates less than 1 GHz. Soliton microcombs, conversely, have an conversion efficiency that is best at ultrahigh such THz. Neither technique easily approaches microwave domain, i.e., 10 s GHz, while maintaining ultrawide spectrum. Here, we bridge gap between two in form resonant by driving dispersion-engineered photonic-chip-based microresonator picosecond order 1-W power. We generate smooth 2200-line soliton-based comb electronically detectable 28 GHz rate. Importantly, observe solitons exist weakly bound state input pulse where noise transfer from suppressed even offset frequencies 100 times lower linear cavity decay This can be reduced further asynchronously, ensuring stays coherent lines very far pump center.