Thermal instabilities, frequency comb formation, and temporal oscillations in Kerr microresonators

Abstract

We analyze the consequences of dissipative heating in driven Kerr microresonators theoretically and numerically, using a thermal Lugiato-Lefever model. We show that thermal sensitivity modifies the stability range of continuous wave in a way that blocks direct access to broadband frequency-comb forming waveforms, and we propose a deterministic access path that bypasses the thermal instability barrier. We describe a novel thermal instability that leads to thermooptical oscillations via a Hopf bifurcation.

21 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRA

References in corpus (3)

• Quadratic Soliton Combs in Doubly-Resonant Second-Harmonic Generation
• Multistability and coexisting soliton combs in ring resonators: the Lugiato-Lefever approach
• Comparison of Models of Fast Saturable Absorption in Passively Modelocked Lasers