Polarization multiplexed dissipative Kerr solitons in on-chip micro-resonator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation and control of polarization multiplexed dissipative Kerr solitons in an on-chip silicon nitride micro-resonator, enabling new applications in spectral expansion and quantum measurements.

Contribution

It introduces polarization multiplexed solitons in micro-resonators, showing independent control and coherence properties, which was not previously achieved in integrated photonics.

Findings

TE- and TM-polarized solitons can be generated and controlled independently.

Achieved narrow dual-microcomb beat note linewidth of 4.4 kHz.

Polarization states exhibit uncorrelated time jitters, affecting coherence.

Abstract

We demonstrate polarization multiplexed dissipative Kerr solitons in an on-chip silicon nitride micro-resonator. In our experiment, TE- and TM-polarized soliton can be individually generated and controlled, thanks to their weak mutual interaction as the result of sufficiently different repetition rates and orthogonal polarization states. Furthermore, we find that TE- and TM-polarized solitons usually exhibit uncorrelated time jitters, therefore the frequency and phase coherence between the polarization multiplexed soliton microcombs change dramatically as a function of pump laser parameters, by optimizing which we achieve narrow dual-microcomb beat note linewidth as small as 4.4 kHz. Potential applications of on-chip polarization multiplexed soliton microcombs include Kerr comb spectral expansion, dual-comb metrology, and measurement of quantum entanglements.