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arXiv · 1704.08409

Counter-propagating solitons in microresonators

Qi-Fan Yang·Xu Yi·Ki Youl Yang·Kerry Vahala
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Abstract

Solitons occur in many physical systems when a nonlinearity compensates wave dispersion. Their recent formation in microresonators opens a new research direction for nonlinear optical physics and provides a platform for miniaturization of spectroscopy and frequency metrology systems. These microresonator solitons orbit around a closed waveguide path and produce a repetitive output pulse stream at a rate set by the round-trip time. In this work counter-propagating solitons that simultaneously orbit in an opposing sense (clockwise/counter-clockwise) are studied. Despite sharing the same spatial mode family, their round-trip times can be precisely and independently controlled. Furthermore, a state is possible in which both the relative optical phase and relative repetition rates of the distinct soliton streams are locked. This state allows a single resonator to produce dual-soliton frequency-comb streams having different repetition rates, but with high relative coherence useful in both spectroscopy and laser ranging systems.

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Qi-Fan Yang, Xu Yi, Ki Youl Yang, Kerry Vahala. 2017-04-27. Counter-propagating solitons in microresonators. https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.08409

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