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Heteronuclear soliton molecules in optical microresonators.

  • Weng W Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland. wenle.weng@epfl.ch.
  • Bouchand R Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Lucas E Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Obrzud E Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), Rue de l'Observatoire 58, 2000, Neuchâte, Switzerland.
  • Herr T Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), Rue de l'Observatoire 58, 2000, Neuchâte, Switzerland.
  • Kippenberg TJ Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland. tobias.kippenberg@epfl.ch.
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  • 2020-05-16
Published in:
  • Nature communications. - 2020
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Physics and Astronomy
General Chemistry
English Optical soliton molecules are bound states of solitons that arise from the balance between attractive and repulsive effects. Having been observed in systems ranging from optical fibres to mode-locked lasers, they provide insights into the fundamental interactions between solitons and the underlying dynamics of the nonlinear systems. Here, we enter the multistability regime of a Kerr microresonator to generate superpositions of distinct soliton states that are pumped at the same optical resonance, and report the discovery of heteronuclear dissipative Kerr soliton molecules. Ultrafast electrooptical sampling reveals the tightly short-range bound nature of such soliton molecules, despite comprising cavity solitons of dissimilar amplitudes, durations and carrier frequencies. Besides the significance they hold in resolving soliton dynamics in complex nonlinear systems, such heteronuclear soliton molecules yield coherent frequency combs whose unusual mode structure may find applications in metrology and spectroscopy.
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  • English
Open access status
gold
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/96983
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