Turnkey photonic flywheel in a Chimera cavity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel Chimera cavity approach to generate a turnkey Brillouin-DKS frequency comb with ultralow noise, phase insensitivity, and self-healing capabilities, advancing practical applications in ultrafast optics and microwave electronics.

Contribution

It presents the first demonstration of a turnkey Brillouin-DKS frequency comb using a Chimera cavity, offering phase insensitivity, self-healing, and deterministic DKS state selection.

Findings

Achieved a fundamental comb linewidth of 100 mHz.

Demonstrated DKS timing jitter of 1 femtosecond.

Enabled universal, user-friendly, field-deployable comb devices.

Abstract

Dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) microcomb has emerged as an enabling technology that revolutionizes a wide range of applications in both basic science and technological innovation. Reliable turnkey operation with sub-opticalcycle and sub-femtosecond timing jitter is key to the success of many intriguing microcomb applications at the intersection of ultrafast optics and microwave electronics. Here we propose a novel approach to demonstrate the first turnkey Brillouin-DKS frequency comb. Our approach with a Chimera cavity offers essential benefits that are not attainable previously, including phase insensitivity, self-healing capability, deterministic selection of DKS state, and access to the ultralow noise comb state. The demonstrated turnkey Brillouin-DKS frequency comb achieves a fundamental comb linewidth of 100 mHz and DKS timing jitter of 1 femtosecond for averaging times up to 56 {\mu}s. The approach is universal and generalizable to various device platforms for user-friendly and field-deployable comb devices.