Quantum diffusion of microcavity solitons

Abstract

Coherently-pumped (Kerr) solitons in an ideal optical microcavity are expected to undergo random quantum motion that determines fundamental performance limits in applications of soliton microcombs. Here, this diffusive motion and its impact on Kerr soliton timing jitter is studied experimentally. Typically hidden below technical noise contributions, the quantum limit is discerned by measuring counter-propagating solitons. Their relative motion features only weak interactions and also presents excellent common mode suppression of technical noise. This is in strong contrast to co-propagating solitons which are found to have relative timing jitter well below the quantum limit of a single soliton on account of strong mutual motion correlation. Good agreement is found between theory and experiment. The results establish the fundamental limits to timing jitter in soliton microcombs and provide new insights on multi-soliton physics

References in corpus (2)

• Topological solitons as addressable phase bits in a driven laser
• Photonic flywheel in a monolithic fiber resonator

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• All-Optical Noise Quenching of An Integrated Frequency Comb
• Theory and Application of Cavity Solitons in Photonic Devices
• Coherent terahertz-to-microwave link using electro-optic-modulated Turing rolls
• Rhythmic soliton interactions for integrated dual-microcomb spectroscopy
• Dissipative systems fractionally coupled to a bath
• Mapping ultrafast timing jitter in dispersion-managed 89 GHz frequency microcombs via self-heterodyne linear interferometry