Dispersion-less Kerr solitons in spectrally confined optical cavities

Solitons are self-reinforcing localized wave packets that manifest in the major areas of nonlinear science,from optics to biology and Bose-Einstein condensates.Recently,optically driven dissipative solitons have attracted great attention for the implementation of the chip-scale frequency combs that are decisive for communications,spectroscopy,neural computing,and quantum information processing.In the current understanding,the generation of temporal solitons involves the chromatic dispersion as a key enabling physical effect,acting either globally or locally on the cavity dynamics in a decisive way.Here,we report on a novel class of solitons,both theoretically and experimentally,which builds up in spectrally confined optical cavities when dispersion is practically absent,both globally and locally.Precisely,the interplay between the Kerr nonlinearity and spectral filtering results in an infiinite hierarchy of eigenfunctions which,combined with optical gain,allow for the generation of stable dispersion-less dissipative solitons in a previously unexplored regime.When the filter order tends to infinity,we find an unexpected link between dissipative and conservative solitons,in the form of Nyquist-pulse-like solitons endowed with an ultra-flat spectrum.In contrast to the conventional dispersion-enabled nonlinear Schr?dinger solitons,these dispersion-less Nyquist solitons build on a fully confined spectrum and their energy scaling is not constrained by the pulse duration.Dispersion-less soliton molecules and their deterministic transitioning to single solitons are also evidenced.These findings broaden the fundamental scope of the dissipative soliton paradigm and open new avenues for generating soliton pulses and frequency combs endowed with unprecedented temporal and spectral features.

Microwave photonics connected with microresonator frequency combs

Microresonator frequency combs （microcombs） are very promising as ultra-compact broadband sources for microwave photonic applications. Conversely, microwave photonic techniques are also employed inten- sely in the study of microcombs to reveal and control the comb formation dynamics. In this paper, we reviewed the microwave photonic techniques and applications that are connected with microcombs. The future research directions of microcomb-based microwave photonics were also discussed.

Broadband photonic ADC for microwave photonics-based radar receiver

A broadband photonic analog-to-digital converter（ADC） for X-band radar applications is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An X-band signal with arbitrary waveform and a bandwidth up to 2 GHz can be synchronously sampled and processed due to the optical sampling structure. In the experiment, the chirp signal centered at 9 GHz with a bandwidth of 1.6 GHz is sampled and down-converted with a signal-to-noise ratio of 7.20 d B and an improved noise figure. Adopting the photonic ADC in the radar receiver and the above signal as the transmitted radar signal, an X-band inverse synthetic aperture radar system is set up, and the range and cross-range resolutions of 9.4 and 8.3 cm are obtained, respectively.

Soliton regulation in microcavities induced by fundamental–second-harmonic mode coupling

Microcomb generation with simultaneous χ2 and χ3 nonlinearities brings new possibilities for ultrabroadband and potentially self-referenced integrated comb sources. However, the evolution of the intracavity field involving multiple nonlinear processes shows complex dynamics that are still poorly understood. Here, we report on strong soliton regulation induced by fundamental–second-harmonic(FD-SH) mode coupling. The formation of solitons from chaos is extensively investigated based on coupled Lugiato–Lefever equations. The soliton generation shows more deterministic behaviors in the presence of FD-SH mode interaction, which is in sharp contrast with the usual cases where the soliton number and relative locations are stochastic. Deterministic single soliton transition, soliton binding, and prohibition are observed, depending on the phase-matching condition and coupling coefficient between the fundamental and second-harmonic waves. Our finding provides important new insights into the soliton dynamics in microcavities with simultaneous χ~2and χ~3nonlinearities and can be immediate guidance for broadband soliton comb generation with such platforms.

Second-harmonic-assisted four-wave mixing in chip-based microresonator frequency comb generation

Simultaneous Kerr comb formation and second-harmonic generation with on-chip microresonators can greatly facilitate comb self-referencing for optical clocks and frequency metrology.Moreover,the presence of both second-and third-order nonlinearities results in complex cavity dynamics that is of high scientific interest but is still far from being well-understood.Here,we demonstrate that the interaction between the fundamental and the second-harmonic waves can provide an entirely new way of phase matching for four-wave mixing in optical microresonators,enabling the generation of optical frequency combs in the normal dispersion regime under conditions where comb creation is ordinarily prohibited.We derive new coupled time-domain mean-field equations and obtain simulation results showing good qualitative agreement with our experimental observations.Our findings provide a novel way of overcoming the dispersion limit for simultaneous Kerr comb formation and second-harmonic generation,which might prove to be especially important in the near-visible to visible range where several atomic transitions commonly used for the stabilization of optical clocks are located and where the large normal material dispersion is likely to dominate.