Frequency combs induced by phase turbulence

Marco Piccardo (), Benedikt Schwarz, Dmitry Kazakov, Maximilian Beiser, Nikola Opačak, Yongrui Wang, Shantanu Jha, Johannes Hillbrand, Michele Tamagnone, Wei Ting Chen, Alexander Y. Zhu, Lorenzo L. Columbo, Alexey Belyanin and Federico Capasso ()
Additional contact information
Marco Piccardo: Harvard University
Benedikt Schwarz: Harvard University
Dmitry Kazakov: Harvard University
Maximilian Beiser: Institute of Solid State Electronics
Nikola Opačak: Institute of Solid State Electronics
Yongrui Wang: Texas A&M University
Shantanu Jha: Harvard University
Johannes Hillbrand: Harvard University
Michele Tamagnone: Harvard University
Wei Ting Chen: Harvard University
Alexander Y. Zhu: Harvard University
Lorenzo L. Columbo: Politecnico di Torino
Alexey Belyanin: Texas A&M University
Federico Capasso: Harvard University

Nature, 2020, vol. 582, issue 7812, 360-364

Abstract: Abstract Wave instability—the process that gives rise to turbulence in hydrodynamics1—represents the mechanism by which a small disturbance in a wave grows in amplitude owing to nonlinear interactions. In photonics, wave instabilities result in modulated light waveforms that can become periodic in the presence of coherent locking mechanisms. These periodic optical waveforms are known as optical frequency combs2–4. In ring microresonator combs5,6, an injected monochromatic wave becomes destabilized by the interplay between the resonator dispersion and the Kerr nonlinearity of the constituent crystal. By contrast, in ring lasers instabilities are considered to occur only under extreme pumping conditions7,8. Here we show that, despite this notion, semiconductor ring lasers with ultrafast gain recovery9,10 can enter frequency comb regimes at low pumping levels owing to phase turbulence11—an instability known to occur in hydrodynamics, superconductors and Bose–Einstein condensates. This instability arises from the phase–amplitude coupling of the laser field provided by linewidth enhancement12, which produces the needed interplay of dispersive and nonlinear effects. We formulate the instability condition in the framework of the Ginzburg–Landau formalism11. The localized structures that we observe share several properties with dissipative Kerr solitons, providing a first step towards connecting semiconductor ring lasers and microresonator frequency combs13.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2386-6

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