Reliable intracavity reflection for self-injection locking lasers and microcomb generation

Self-injection locking has emerged as a crucial technique for coherent optical sources,spanning from narrow linewidth lasers to the generation of localized microcombs.This technique involves key components,namely a laser diode and a high-quality cavity that induces narrow-band reflection back into the laser diode.However,in prior studies,the reflection mainly relied on the random intracavity Rayleigh backscattering,rendering it unpredictable and unsuitable for large-scale production and wide-band operation.In this work,we present a simple approach to achieve reliable intracavity reflection for self-injection locking to address this challenge by introducing a Sagnac loop into the cavity.This method guarantees robust reflection for every resonance within a wide operational band without compromising the quality factor or adding complexity to the fabrication process.As a proof of concept,we showcase the robust generation of narrow linewidth lasers and localized microcombs locked to different resonances within a normal-dispersion microcavity.Furthermore,the existence and generation of localized patterns in a normal-dispersion cavity with broadband forward–backward field coupling is first proved,as far as we know,both in simulation and in experiment.Our research offers a transformative approach to self-injection locking and holds great potential for large-scale production.

Submilliwatt, widely tunable coherent microcomb generation with feedback-free operation

Microcombs are revolutionizing optoelectronics by providing parallel, mutually coherent wavelengthchannels for time-frequency metrology and information processing. To implement this essential function inintegrated photonic systems, it is desirable to drive microcombs directly with an on-chip laser in a simpleand flexible way. However, two major difficulties have prevented this goal: (1) generating mode-lockedcomb states usually requires a significant amount of pump power and (2) the requirement to align laser andresonator frequency significantly complicates operation and limits the tunability of the comb lines. Here, weaddress these problems by using microresonators on an AlGaAs on-insulator platform to generate dark-pulsemicrocombs. This highly nonlinear platform dramatically relaxes fabrication requirements and leads to arecord-low pump power of <1 mW for coherent comb generation. Dark-pulse microcombs facilitated bythermally controlled avoided mode crossings are accessed by direct distributed feedback laser pumping.Without any feedback or control circuitries, the comb shows good coherence and stability. With around150 mW on-chip power, this approach also leads to an unprecedentedly wide tuning range of over one freespectral range (97.5 GHz). Our work provides a route to realize power-efficient, simple, and reconfigurablemicrocombs that can be seamlessly integrated with a wide range of photonic systems.