Thermal control of a Kerr microresonator soliton comb via an optical sideband

We report the thermal control of a dissipativeKerr microresonator soliton comb via an optical sideband generated from an electro-optic modulator. Same as the previous reports using an independent auxiliary laser, our sideband-based (S-B) auxiliary light also enables access to a stable soliton comb and reduces the phase noise of the soliton comb, greatly simplifying the set-up with an auxiliary laser. More importantly, because of the intrinsically high frequency/phase correlation between the pump and S-B auxiliary light, the detuning between the pump and resonance frequency is automatically almost fixed, which allows an 18 times larger effective soliton existence range than the conventional method using an independent auxiliary laser, as well as a scanning of the soliton comb of more than 10 GHz without using microheaters. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group

Automated summary

This paper reports on the thermal control of a dissipative Kerr microresonator soliton comb using an optical sideband generated from an electro-optic modulator. Similar to previous reports using an independent auxiliary laser, our sideband-based auxiliary light enables stable soliton comb generation and reduces phase noise. Furthermore, due to the high frequency/phase correlation between the pump and sideband auxiliary light, the detuning between the pump and resonance frequency remains fixed, allowing for a larger effective soliton existence range and scanning of the soliton comb without microheaters.