Carmen Haide López Ortega, Photonics

Discussion leader is Attila Fülöp from NVIDIA, Gothenburg, Sweden. 

Abstract: Optical frequency combs have attracted significant attention due to their wide range of applications, particularly in metrology, spectroscopy, and optical communications. Integrated frequency combs enable the simultaneous generation of equally spaced coherent frequency lines while offering compact, scalable, and CMOS-compatible designs. Among these, Kerr-based frequency combs rely on nonlinear effects to sustain solitons in the microresonators. These dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) microcombs exhibit strong phase correlations between the comb lines, and their optical linewidths can be described using the elastic tape model. However, early implementations of DKS microcombs faced challenges related to conversion efficiency and reliable generation, which can be addressed using coupled-resonator configurations.
This seminar explores the experimental characterization of noise dynamics in single cavity microresonators and the phase correlations between comb lines. It further investigates the advantages and fabrication tolerances of coupled cavity resonators. These configurations not only improve the conversion efficiency in the single-soliton regime but also enable the generation of soliton superstructures, known as soliton crystals. In this study, we demonstrate the tunable generation of soliton crystals and analyze their optical linewidths.
These results provide insights into the advantages and limitations of different soliton states for optical communications, as well as their inherent noise properties.