Monostable dissipative Kerr solitons.

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Nonlinear Optics
• Integrated Photonics

Background:

• Kerr microcombs offer chip-scale frequency combs for cost-effective applications.
• Reliable generation of dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) is challenging due to thermal effects and multistability.
• Previous methods achieved either deterministic or self-starting DKSs, but not both simultaneously.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel regime of dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) that is both deterministic and self-starting.
• To enable the stable existence of only a single soliton, termed monostable DKSs (MS-DKSs).
• To overcome the limitations of previous Kerr microcomb generation approaches.

Main Methods:

• Development of a graphical model to characterize and understand MS-DKSs.
• Formulation of design principles for achieving MS-DKS behavior.
• Numerical demonstration of MS-DKS generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate microring resonator.

Main Results:

• A new regime of DKSs, termed monostable DKSs (MS-DKSs), has been identified.
• MS-DKSs exhibit both deterministic and self-starting characteristics.
• The design fundamentally forbids continuous-wave-only and multiple soliton states, ensuring single soliton stability.

Conclusions:

• The developed MS-DKS regime provides a pathway to highly reliable on-chip frequency comb generation.
• This advancement addresses key challenges hindering the practical application of Kerr microcombs.
• The findings pave the way for robust and scalable integrated photonic devices utilizing frequency combs.