Deterministic generation and switching of dissipative Kerr soliton in a thermally controlled micro-resonator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the deterministic generation and switching of dissipative Kerr solitons in a thermally controlled micro-resonator, using an auxiliary laser and temperature tuning to achieve robust control over soliton states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel thermally controlled method for deterministic DKS generation and switching in micro-resonators, independent of tuning speed, with potential for on-chip soliton studies.

Findings

Successful experimental demonstration of DKS switching

Identification of multiple DKS states via discrete soliton-steps

Robust control of soliton states through temperature management

Abstract

Dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) in the high-Q micro-resonator corresponds to self-organized short pulse in time domain via double balance between dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity, as well as cavity loss and parametric gain. In this paper, we first experimentally demonstrate deterministic generation and switching of DKSs in a thermally controlled micro-ring resonator based on high-index doped silica glass platform. In our scheme, an auxiliary laser is introduced to timely balance the intra-cavity heat fluctuation. By decreasing the operating temperature through a thermo-electric cooler, soliton crystal is firstly generated, then increasing the temperature, DKSs switching and single soliton are robustly accessed, which is independent of the tuning speed. During the switching process, varieties of DKSs are identified by tens of featured discrete soliton-steps, which is favorable for study of on-chip soliton interactions and nonlinear applications.