Thermal tuning of Kerr frequency combs in silicon nitride microring resonators

Xue, Xiaoxiao; Xuan, Yi; Wang, Cong; Wang, Pei Hsun; Liu, Yang; Niu, Ben; Leaird, Daniel E.; Qi, Minghao; Weiner, Andrew M.

doi:10.1364/oe.24.000687

Cited by 149 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…For microresonators with much more compact volume, the thermal drifting speed is much faster. Several technical tricks have been proposed to overcome the thermal instability related to intracavity power transitions, such as pump laser scanning [5], power kicking [45], and microresonator tuning [46]- [49]. For mutually coupled microresonators, independent tuning of each resonator is essential.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Super-efficient temporal solitons in mutually coupled optical cavities

2019

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A coherently driven Kerr optical cavity is able to convert a continuous-wave laser to a sequence of ultrashort soliton pulses, enabling the generation of broadband and mode-locked frequency combs. Kerr cavity solitons are balanced through an energy exchange with the driving pump field. Improving the energy conversion efficiency from the pump to the soliton is of great significance for practical applications, but remains an outstanding challenge due to a limited temporal overlap between the soliton and the pump. Here, we report the discovery of temporal Kerr solitons in mutually coupled cavities instead of a traditional single cavity. We propose a strategy for breaking the limitation of pump-to-soliton energy conversion, and connect the underlying mechanism to impedance matching in radiofrequency electronic circuits. With macro optical fiber ring cavities which share the same physical model as miniature optical microresonators, we demonstrate nearly one-order improvement of the efficiency. Our findings pave the way towards super-efficient soliton microcombs based on optical microresonators with ultra-high quality factors. Dissipative solitons are localized particle-like structures which are double balanced by gain and loss, and nonlinearity and dispersion (or diffraction) [1], [2]. The study of dissipative solitons spreads in a large variety of different areas, has led to many exciting scientific findings and useful applications. Dissipative temporal solitons in coherently driven Kerr optical cavities have attracted great interest in recent years. The study arose in two different scenarios. One focused in the time domain, i.e., exciting and maintaining solitons to form optical buffers [3]; the other focused in the frequency domain, i.e., optical frequency comb generation with miniature microresonators [4]. The experimental demonstration of temporal cavity solitons was first performed in macro fiber ring cavities [3], and then repeated in optical microresonators [5], [6]. The researches from frequency and time domains then merged to a clear subject of cavity solitons [7], [8]. The discovery of microresonator solitons truly brings cavity solitons to a hot active research area because it enables integrated coherent frequency comb sources which may revolutionize many applications [9]- [17].Following the historical trend, the researches of cavity solitons nowadays have been performed on mainly two platforms. One is macro fiber ring cavities [3], [18]- [21]; the other is miniature optical microcavities [5], [8], [22]-[26]. In comparison, fiber cavities are more convenient for precise frequency detuning control and can be easily investigated in real time due to their much slower time scale; microresonators are particularly useful as compact frequency comb generators for practical applications. Previous studies have shown that both platforms share the similar physical model and useful technical hints may be learned from each other.

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Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Super-efficient temporal solitons in mutually coupled optical cavities

2019

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“…The first term on the right side corresponds to a thermal shift of the entire n g (ω s ) curve, while the second term describes temperature-induced movement along the curve. In past analyses of the soliton thermal dynamics 29 , only the first term has been considered. This leads to the prediction…”

Section: Cross Correlation Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal decoherence and laser cooling of Kerr-microresonator solitons (Conference Presentation)

Drake

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Briles

et al. 2020

Photonic Heat Engines: Science and Applications II

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Thermal noise is ubiquitous in microscopic systems and in high-precision measurements. Controlling thermal noise, especially using laser light to apply dissipation, substantially affects science in revealing the quantum regime of gases 1 , in searching for fundamental physics 2 , and in realizing practical applications 3 . Recently, nonlinear light-matter interactions in microresonators have opened up new classes of microscopic devices. A key example is Kerrmicroresonator frequency combs 4 ; so-called soliton microcombs not only explore nonlinear science but also enable integrated-photonics devices, such as optical synthesizers 5 , optical clocks 6 , and data-communications systems 7 . Here, we explore how thermal noise leads to fundamental decoherence of soliton microcombs. We show that a particle-like soliton exists in a state of thermal equilibrium with its silicon-chip-based resonator. Therefore the soliton microcomb's modal linewidth is thermally broadened. Our experiments utilize record sensitivity in carrier-envelope-offset frequency detection in order to uncover this regime of strong thermal-noise correlations. Furthermore, we have discovered that passive laser cooling of the soliton reduces thermal decoherence to far below the ambient-temperature limit. We implement laser cooling by microresonator photothermal forcing, and we observe cooling of the frequency-comb light to an effective temperature of 84 K. Our work illuminates inherent connections between nonlinear photonics, microscopic physical fluctuations, and precision metrology that could be harnessed for innovative devices and methods to manipulate light.

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“…The ability of continuously tuning the frequency comb is vital for applications such as precision sensing, frequency locking to atomic transition, and f −2f self-referencing. By tuning the temperature of the device, we obtain a continuously tunable visible comb by more than one free spectral range through thermo-optic effect [48], which allows for a much larger frequency tuning range than the mechanical actuation [49] or electro-optic effects [50]. Figure 5(a) and (c) show the infrared and visible comb spectra under different temperature.…”

Section: B Thermal Tuning Of Optical Combmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient Generation of a Near-visible Frequency Comb via Cherenkov-like Radiation from a Kerr Microcomb

et al. 2018

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Optical frequency combs enable state-of-the-art applications including frequency metrology, optical clocks, astronomical measurements and sensing. Recent demonstrations of microresonator-based Kerr frequency combs or microcombs pave the way to scalable and stable comb sources on a photonic chip. Generating microcombs in the visible wavelength range, however, has been limited by large material dispersion and optical loss. Here we demonstrate a scheme for efficiently generating visible microcomb in a high Q aluminum nitride microring resonator. Enhanced Pockels effect strongly couples infrared and visible modes into hybrid mode pairs, which participate in the Kerr microcomb generation process and lead to strong Cherenkov radiation in the visible band of an octave apart. A surprisingly high conversion efficiency of 22% is achieved from the pump laser to the visible comb. We further demonstrate a robust frequency tuning of the visible comb by more than one free spectral range and apply it to the absorption spectroscopy of a water-based dye molecule solution. Our work marks the first step towards high-efficiency visible microcomb generation and its utilization, and it also provides insights on the significance of Pockels effect and its strong coupling with Kerr nonlinearity in a single microcavity device. arXiv:1704.04264v1 [physics.optics]

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Thermal tuning of Kerr frequency combs in silicon nitride microring resonators

Cited by 149 publications

References 38 publications

Super-efficient temporal solitons in mutually coupled optical cavities

Super-efficient temporal solitons in mutually coupled optical cavities

Thermal decoherence and laser cooling of Kerr-microresonator solitons (Conference Presentation)

Efficient Generation of a Near-visible Frequency Comb via Cherenkov-like Radiation from a Kerr Microcomb

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