Heteronuclear soliton molecules in optical microresonators

Wenle Weng (), Romain Bouchand, Erwan Lucas, Ewelina Obrzud, Tobias Herr and Tobias J. Kippenberg ()
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Wenle Weng: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Romain Bouchand: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Erwan Lucas: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Ewelina Obrzud: Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM)
Tobias Herr: Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM)
Tobias J. Kippenberg: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Optical soliton molecules are bound states of solitons that arise from the balance between attractive and repulsive effects. Having been observed in systems ranging from optical fibres to mode-locked lasers, they provide insights into the fundamental interactions between solitons and the underlying dynamics of the nonlinear systems. Here, we enter the multistability regime of a Kerr microresonator to generate superpositions of distinct soliton states that are pumped at the same optical resonance, and report the discovery of heteronuclear dissipative Kerr soliton molecules. Ultrafast electrooptical sampling reveals the tightly short-range bound nature of such soliton molecules, despite comprising cavity solitons of dissimilar amplitudes, durations and carrier frequencies. Besides the significance they hold in resolving soliton dynamics in complex nonlinear systems, such heteronuclear soliton molecules yield coherent frequency combs whose unusual mode structure may find applications in metrology and spectroscopy.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15720-z

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