Mode-Locked Ultrashort Pulse Generation from On-Chip Normal Dispersion Microresonators (2024)

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Mode-Locked Ultrashort Pulse Generation from On-Chip Normal Dispersion Microresonators

S.-W. Huang, H. Zhou, J. Yang, J. F. McMillan, A. Matsko, M. Yu, D.-L. Kwong, L. Maleki, and C. W. Wong

Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 053901 – Published 4 February 2015

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We describe generation of stable mode-locked pulse trains from on-chip normal dispersion microresonators. The excitation of hyperparametric oscillation is facilitated by the local dispersion disruptions induced by mode interactions. The system is then driven from hyperparametric oscillation to the mode-locked state with over 200nm spectral width by controlled pump power and detuning. With the continuous-wave-driven nonlinearity, the pulses sit on a pedestal, akin to a cavity soliton. We identify the importance of pump detuning and wavelength-dependent quality factors in stabilizing and shaping the pulse structure, to achieve a single pulse inside the cavity. We examine the mode-locking dynamics by numerically solving the master equation and provide analytic solutions under appropriate approximations.

Received 14 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.053901

Authors & Affiliations

S.-W. Huang^1,2,*, H. Zhou², J. Yang^1,2, J. F. McMillan², A. Matsko³, M. Yu⁴, D.-L. Kwong⁴, L. Maleki³, and C. W. Wong^1,2,†

¹Mesoscopic Optics and Quantum Electronics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
²Optical Nanostructures Laboratory, Center for Integrated Science and Engineering, Solid-State Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
³OEwaves Inc., Pasadena, California 91107, USA
⁴Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore 117685, Singapore

^*swhuang@seas.ucla.edu
^†cheewei.wong@ucla.edu

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Vol. 114, Iss. 5 — 6 February 2015

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Figure 1
(a)Transmission of the cavity modes. Inset: Optical micrograph of the ring resonator. Scale bar: $100 μ m$ . (b)Left: Wavelength-dependent FSR, measuring a nonequidistance of the modes, $D_{2} \equiv - β_{2} c ω_{FSR}^{2} / n_{0}$ , of $- 225 kHz$ , in good agreement with the simulation result from a full-vector finite-element mode solver, $D_{2} = - 270 kHz$ . Right: Transmission of the cavity mode at the pump wavelength, measuring a quality factor of $1.1 \times 10^{6}$ . (c)Example Kerr comb spectrum, with a spectral width spanning more than 200nm. (d)rf amplitude noise of the Kerr comb (black curve) along with the detector background (red curve), indicating the low phase noise operation. Inset: Zoom-in plot of the optical spectrum, showing a clean comb structure. (e)cw heterodyne beat notes between a cw laser and different comb lines (black, pump; blue, 10th mode; red, 20th mode; green, 21st mode). No linewidth broadening of the comb lines relative to the pump is observed, showing the comb retains a similar level of phase noise as the cw laser.
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Figure 2
(a)FROG spectrogram with a delay scan of 32ps, showing a fundamentally mode-locked pulse train. (b)FROG spectrogram measured with a finer time resolution of 4fs. (c)Reconstructed FROG spectrogram achieved by use of genetic algorithms. (d)Retrieved pulse shape (light curve) and temporal phase profile (dark curve), measuring a 74fs FWHM pulse duration. (e)Measured AC of the generated fundamentally mode-locked pulse train. (f)Left: Zoom-in plot of the measured AC. Right: Calculated ACs of a transform-limited stable pulse train (dark curve) and an unstable pulse train showing a significantly larger AC background (light curve).
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Figure 3
(a)Near the threshold and with a small red detuning of 180MHz, the first pairs of hyperparametric oscillation sidebands emerge at around the $\pm 42 nd$ modes, showing good agreement with the experimental result (inset). (b)With the proper pump power (260mW) and red detuning (2.5GHz), a mode-locked pulse train is generated. The light and dark curves are the modeled pulse shape and the temporal phase profile, respectively. Inset: Zoom-in plot of the pulse shape, showing an ultrashort FWHM pulse duration of 110fs. (c)Square optical pulses can also be generated directly from a normal GVD microresonator. The conditions for the observation of these square pulses are $D_{2} = 0.002$ , red detuning of $7.7 γ_{0}$ , resonance linewidth of $γ_{j} = γ_{j 0} [1 + 0.01 {(j - j_{0})}^{2}]$ , and pump power 25 times larger than the threshold.
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Figure 4
(a)Example Kerr comb spectrum from the reannealed microresonator, showing a smoother and broader spectrum. (b)rf amplitude noise of the Kerr comb (black curve) along with the detector background (red curve). While the Kerr comb can also be driven to a low phase noise state, the high background level of the AC trace (inset) indicates the absence of mode-locked pulses. The red dashed line is the calculated AC trace assuming random spectral phases.
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