CLEO 2018 Pacific Rim Ryo Suzuki

W2F.2: High-resolution spectroscopy using a tunable dissipative Kerr soliton microcomb

Yong Geng et al., Univ of Electronic Science & Tech China

Although I have always read papers by microcomb research groups, I first became aware of this research group at this conference, where they confirmed soliton microcomb generation using a silicon nitride ring resonator, but with two lasers (pump and auxiliary lasers). One of the major problems in soliton microcomb generation is that the coupling of the pump laser to the resonator is thermally unstable. In this study, by pumping the auxiliary laser to the blue-detuning side, we compensated for the unstable coupling of the pump laser (red-detuning side) and obtained stable coupling of the pump laser and soliton microcomb generation. This idea is easily conceivable for microcomb researchers (in fact, I had considered it), but I felt that the key to success in this research is to be able to bring it to the stage where it can be studied in detail and demonstrated. In fact, considering the past examples of Tanabe Laboratory, we had been able to obtain initial ideas that anyone could have thought of, such as waveform shaping of microcomb, dual-comb generation of cw-ccw propagation, and crystal resonators with heat sinks. However, what was lacking, I felt, was a reasoned consideration of what phenomena were actually expected to occur, what parameters and equipment were needed, and what results and benefits could be obtained at the end.