Bao, Hualong, Cooper, Adele, Rowley, Maxwell, Di Lauro, Luigi, Totero Gongora, Juan Sebastian, Chu, Sai T, Little, Brent E, Oppo, Gian-Luca, Morandotti, Roberto, Moss, David J, Wetzel, Benjamin, Peccianti, Marco and Pasquazi, Alessia (2019) Laser cavity-soliton microcombs. Nature Photonics. ISSN 1749-4885

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Abstract

Microcavity-based frequency combs, or ‘microcombs’1,2, have enabled many fundamental breakthroughs3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 through the discovery of temporal cavity-solitons. These self-localized waves, described by the Lugiato–Lefever equation22, are sustained by a background of radiation usually containing 95% of the total power23. Simple methods for their efficient generation and control are currently being investigated to finally establish microcombs as out-of-the-lab tools24. Here, we demonstrate microcomb laser cavity-solitons. Laser cavity-solitons are intrinsically background-free and have underpinned key breakthroughs in semiconductor lasers22,25,26,27,28. By merging their properties with the physics of multimode systems29, we provide a new paradigm for soliton generation and control in microcavities. We demonstrate 50-nm-wide bright soliton combs induced at average powers more than one order of magnitude lower than the Lugiato–Lefever soliton power threshold22, measuring a mode efficiency of 75% versus the theoretical limit of 5% for bright Lugiato–Lefever solitons23. Finally, we can tune the repetition rate by well over a megahertz without any active feedback.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Research Centres and Groups:	Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics > QC0350 Optics. Light > QC0395 Physical optics > QC0446.2 Nonlinear optics. Quantum optics
Depositing User:	Alessia Pasquazi
Date Deposited:	12 Mar 2019 12:06
Last Modified:	01 Jul 2019 18:15
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/82493

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