Stably accessing octave-spanning microresonator frequency combs in the soliton regime

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.4.000193
• Publication Date: 2017-02-01T16:27:23Z
• Authors: Qing Li; Travis C. Briles; Daron A. Westly; Tara E. Drake; Jordan R. Stone; B. Robert Ilic; Scott A. Diddams; Scott B. Papp; Kartik Srinivasan
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; FOS: Physical sciences; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; Physics - Optics; Optics (physics.optics)

Microresonator frequency combs can be an enabling technology for optical synthesis and timekeeping in low size, weight, power architectures. Such systems require comb operation low-noise, phase-coherent states such as solitons, with broad spectral bandwidths (e.g., octave-spanning) self-referencing to detect the carrier-envelope offset frequency. However, stably accessing is complicated by thermo-optic dispersion. For example, Si3N4 platform, precisely dispersion-engineered structures support broadband operation, but microsecond thermal time constants have necessitated fast pump or control stabilize solitons. In contrast, here we consider how soliton accessed simple laser tuning, at a rate much slower than dynamics. We demonstrate octave-spanning microresonators, including generation of multi-soliton state near 40 mW single-soliton 120 mW. also develop simplified two-step analysis explain these are thermally stable way without laser, outline required properties operation. Our model agrees experimental results well numerical simulations based on Lugiato-Lefever equation that incorporates Moreover, it explains observation member adjacent mode family red-detuned side mitigate requirements states.