Abstract
Solitons are self-sustained wavepackets that occur in many physical systems. Their recent demonstration in optical microresonators has provided a new platform for the study of nonlinear optical physics with practical implications for miniaturization of time standards, spectroscopy tools, and frequency metrology systems. However, despite its importance to the understanding of soliton physics, as well as development of new applications, imaging the rich dynamical behavior of solitons in microcavities has not been possible. These phenomena require a difficult combination of high-temporal-resolution and long-record-length in order to capture the evolving trajectories of closely spaced microcavity solitons. Here, an imaging method is demonstrated that visualizes soliton motion with sub-picosecond resolution over arbitrary time spans. A wide range of complex soliton transient behavior are characterized in the temporal or spectral domain, including soliton formation, collisions, spectral breathing, and soliton decay. This method can serve as a visualization tool for developing new soliton applications and understanding complex soliton physics in microcavities.
Highlights
Solitons are self-sustained wavepackets that occur in many physical systems
While the relative position of closely spaced soliton complexes[11] can be inferred over time from their composite dispersive Fourier transform (DFT) spectra[14], Fourier inversion requires the constituent solitons to have similar waveforms which restricts the generality of the technique
The unique physics of the new soliton microcavity system has led to observation of many unforeseen physical phenomena involving compound soliton states, such as Stokes solitons[36], soliton number switching[37] and soliton crystals[38]
Summary
Solitons are self-sustained wavepackets that occur in many physical systems. Their recent demonstration in optical microresonators has provided a new platform for the study of nonlinear optical physics with practical implications for miniaturization of time standards, spectroscopy tools, and frequency metrology systems. Despite its importance to the understanding of soliton physics, as well as development of new applications, imaging the rich dynamical behavior of solitons in microcavities has not been possible These phenomena require a difficult combination of high-temporal-resolution and long-record-length in order to capture the evolving trajectories of closely spaced microcavity solitons. A wide range of complex soliton transient behavior are characterized in the temporal or spectral domain, including soliton formation, collisions, spectral breathing, and soliton decay This method can serve as a visualization tool for developing new soliton applications and understanding complex soliton physics in microcavities. This new type of dissipative soliton[24] was long considered a theoretical possibility[3] and was first observed in optical fiber resonators[4] Their microcavity embodiment poses severe challenges for imaging of dynamical phenomena by conventional methods, because multi-soliton states feature inherently closely spaced solitons. Beyond the necessity to employ a new method for imaging soliton motion in microcavities, the high-repetition rate of microcavity solitons (tens of gigahertz and higher) is advantageous in sampling-based recording of motion
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