Thermally Induced Generation of Platicons in Optical Microresonators

TL;DR

This paper numerically demonstrates a novel thermal mechanism for generating flat-top solitonic pulses, called platicons, in optical microresonators with normal GVD, highlighting different regimes and parameter conditions for their excitation.

Contribution

It introduces a new thermal effect-based method for platicon generation in microresonators, expanding understanding of soliton formation under normal GVD conditions.

Findings

Platicons can be generated via negative thermal effects in microresonators.

Two regimes of platicon generation identified: smooth and oscillatory.

Parameter ranges for platicon excitation depend on thermal relaxation time, pump amplitude, and GVD.

Abstract

We demonstrate numerically novel mechanism providing generation of the flat-top solitonic pulses, platicons, in optical microresonators at normal GVD via negative thermal effects. We found that platicon excitation is possible if the ratio of the photon lifetime to the thermal relaxation time is large enough. We show that there are two regimes of the platicon generation depending on the pump amplitude: the smooth one and the oscillatory one. Parameter ranges providing platicon excitation are found and analysed for different values of the thermal relaxation time, frequency-scan rate and GVD coefficient. Possibility of the turn-key generation regime is also shown.