Abstract

We present a theory of the frequency comb generation in the high-Q ring microresonators with quadratic nonlinearity and normal dispersion and demonstrate that the naturally large difference of the repetition rates at the fundamental and 2nd harmonic frequencies supports a family of the bright soliton frequency combs providing the parametric gain is moderated by tuning the index-matching parameter to exceed the repetition rate difference by a significant factor. This factor equals the sideband number associated with the high-order phase-matched sum-frequency process. The theoretical framework, i.e., the dressed-resonator method, to study the frequency conversion and comb generation is formulated by including the sum-frequency nonlinearity into the definition of the resonator spectrum. The Rabi splitting of the dressed frequencies leads to the four distinct parametric down-conversion conditions (signal-idler-pump photon energy conservation laws). The parametric instability tongues associated with the generation of the sparse, i.e., Turing-pattern-like, frequency combs with varying repetition rates are analysed in details. The sum-frequency matched sideband exhibits the optical Pockels nonlinearity and strongly modified dispersion, which limit the soliton bandwidth and also play a distinct role in the Turing comb generation. Our methodology and data highlight the analogy between the driven multimode resonators and the photon-atom interaction.

Highlights

  • Ring microresonators break through the traditional barriers of frequency conversion in terms of power efficiency, generated bandwidth, and compactness [1,2]

  • References [3,4,5,6] have been among the first ones to demonstrate frequency conversion in high-quality factor whispering gallery microresonators with quadratic nonlinearity

  • Results on bright parametric down conversion (PDC) solitons in the resonators with group velocity offset published two decades ago [27] provided a conceptual answer, that the compensation of the group velocity difference is achieved via the balancing interplay between the dissipative and nonlinear effects

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Ring microresonators break through the traditional barriers of frequency conversion in terms of power efficiency, generated bandwidth, and compactness [1,2]. References [3,4,5,6] have been among the first ones to demonstrate frequency conversion in high-quality factor whispering gallery microresonators with quadratic nonlinearity Since this area has made significant progress As we have reported recently [23] and investigate in depth below, this makes the frequency conversion and soliton generation mechanisms depart significantly from what has been known about these effects in the relatively low finesse resonators, F ∼ 102, which often have no resonator feedback at one of the generated harmonics One of the prime results included below is the demonstration of bright soliton pulses in a microresonator which has a large repetition rate difference between the fundamental, ωp, and second-harmonic frequencies, 2ωp (see Sec. XIII). The content of what follows is much wider than just reporting the soliton mode locking, and it is useful to give it a brief overview

CONTENT AND RESULTS OVERVIEW
LINEARIZED SIDEBAND EQUATIONS AND CW STATE
SUM-FREQUENCY MATCHING
DRESSED STATES
DRESSED SPECTRUM AND ENERGY CONSERVATION IN PARAMETRIC DOWN CONVERSION
VIII. PDC INSTABILITY TONGUES
PARAMETRIC THRESHOLDS
ENVELOPE AND COUPLED-MODE EQUATIONS FOR MODE-LOCKED COMBS
TURING-PATTERN COMBS
BRIGHT SOLITON PREREQUISITES
Dispersion of dressed states
Cw-state stability and instability
Optical Pockels and cascaded-Kerr nonlinearities
XIII. BRIGHT SOLITON FREQUENCY COMBS
DISCUSSION
SUMMARY

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