Two-cycle pulse generation from mode-locked Kerr frequency combs based on an integrated dispersion-flattened micro-resonator

Kerr frequency comb generation from a nonlinear high-Q resonator becomes an interdisciplinary research topic emerging from nonlinear optics, integrated photonics, and ultrafast optics. We show that ultrashort cavity solitons can be generated from a mode-locked Kerr frequency comb in a dispersion-eng...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Lin (Contributor), Agarwal, Anuradha Murthy (Contributor), Kimerling, Lionel C. (Contributor), Michel, Jurgen (Contributor)
Other Authors: MIT Materials Research Laboratory (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Microphotonics Center (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), 2014-12-01T20:09:27Z.
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Summary:Kerr frequency comb generation from a nonlinear high-Q resonator becomes an interdisciplinary research topic emerging from nonlinear optics, integrated photonics, and ultrafast optics. We show that ultrashort cavity solitons can be generated from a mode-locked Kerr frequency comb in a dispersion-engineered nonlinear microresonator. The spectral flatness of the comb is greatly improved by making the cavity soliton as short as two optical cycles, with a comb line power variation below 20 dB over an octave-spanning bandwidth from near infrared to mid infrared, while excellent spectral coherence is achieved by soliton-based mode locking. It is shown by simulation that the two-cycle solitons are robust to the wideband soliton perturbation effects such as all-order dispersion, frequency-dependent Q-factor, dispersive wave generation, Kerr self-steepening, and stimulated Raman scattering. The pump power used to generate an octave-spanning combs can be significantly reduced when a dispersion profile with four zero-dispersion frequencies, which paves the way to achieve a fully integrated frequency comb generator on a chip.