Description
Dissipative cavity solitons (CSs) in monochromatically driven Kerr resonators have emerged as a leading platform for chip-scale coherent optical frequency comb generation. Recent experiments have revealed a new class of CS — the parametrically driven cavity soliton (PDCS) — which has been demonstrated in both quadratic-Kerr and purely Kerr resonators. Here, we focus on the latter configuration, in which PDCSs arise under conditions of bichromatic driving. In contrast to conventional CSs, pure-Kerr PDCSs form spectrally midway between the driving fields, enabling pump-separated frequency combs, and exhibit two distinct phase states that may be exploited in applications requiring binary degrees of freedom.
As for conventional CSs, the practical applications of pure-Kerr PDCSs are expected to depend on understanding their excitation dynamics. Experimentally, pure-Kerr PDCSs have been excited exclusively via detuning scans, but the underlying physics remains poorly understood. Although PDCSs are known steady-state solutions of the parametrically driven nonlinear Schrödinger equation (PDNLSE), the effective parameters of this equation are nontrivially related to the physical control parameters of the system, namely detunings and powers of the driving fields. Consequently, it remains unclear how detuning scans traverse the known bifurcation structure of the PDNLSE.
Here, we report on a theoretical and numerical study of PDCS excitation in pure-Kerr resonators under bichromatic driving. We show how judicious detuning scans of the two driving fields trace trajectories through bifurcation regions that can seed and sustain PDCSs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the thermal nonlinearity associated with the small footprint of microresonators greatly facilitates PDCS excitation under experimentally relevant conditions.
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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