Symbiotic Pockels Solitons: microcavity solitons in normal dispersion regime

Abstract

Solitons are wave packets that resist dispersion through a self-induced potential well. They are studied in many fields, but are especially well known in optics on account of the relative ease of their formation and control in optical fiber waveguides. The recent realization of Kerr solitons in microresonator brings the power of microfabrication methods to future applications, and provides a path to miniaturize optical frequency comb, the Nobel Prize winning technology, to chip scale. However, so far, optical temporal solitons only exist in anomalous dispersive mediums. As photonic mate­rials all have strong normal dispersion in visible wavelength, this prohibits the creation of soliton microcomb at visible wavelengths for the applications in optical clock, timing, spectroscopy and astronomical calibration for exoplanet de­tection. In this proposal, we will investigate a new type of solitons that can sustain themselves in normal dispersive microcavity, and extend the soliton microcomb wavelength to the deep visible range. The proposed symbiotic Pockels solitons, which consist of a pair of solitons in two frequency bands, leverage the phase sensitive quadratic (Pockels) photonic process to account for normal dispersion. They are fundamentally distinct from the common Kerr solitons in anomalous dispersive medium, as the wave packets derive negative effective mass from the normal dispersion. The proposed research will be pursued in the fully integrated AlN photonic platform, which has broadband transparency window, large Pockels coefficient, and is compatible with Si photonics and CMOS electronics through heterogeneous integration. Our proposal will create a completely new category of optical solitons and provide an optical platform to enable the exploration of negative effective mass in optical systems for fundamental physics. Of practical importance, we will extend the soliton microcomb wavelength down to 500 nm, which can be directly applied for optical lattice clocks, and exoplanet detection around sun-like stars.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Jan 21, 2022
Source ID
FA95502110301XX0

Entities

People

  • Xu Yi

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • United States Air Force
  • University of Virginia

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics