Photonic frequency microcombs based on dissipative Kerr and quadratic cavity solitons

TL;DR

This review discusses recent advances in photonic frequency microcombs based on dissipative Kerr and quadratic cavity solitons, highlighting their applications in precision measurement, communications, and quantum science.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress and techniques to enhance microcomb performance for diverse scientific and technological applications.

Findings

Enhanced microcomb generation techniques discussed

Applications in optical clocks and spectroscopy highlighted

Potential for quantum information science explored

Abstract

Optical frequency comb, with precisely controlled spectral lines spanning a broad range, has been the key enabling technology for many scientific breakthroughs. In addition to the traditional implementation based on modelocked lasers, photonic frequency microcombs based on dissipative Kerr and quadratic cavity solitons in high-Q microresonators have become invaluable in applications requiring compact footprint, low cost, good energy efficiency, large comb spacing, and access to nonconventional spectral regions. In this review, we comprehensively examine the recent progress of photonic frequency microcombs and discuss how various phenomena can be utilized to enhance the microcomb performances that benefit a plethora of applications including optical atomic clockwork, optical frequency synthesizer, precision spectroscopy, astrospectrograph calibration, biomedical imaging, optical communications, coherent ranging, and quantum information science.