Tailoring microcombs with inverse-designed, meta-dispersion microresonators
arXiv:2209.10294 · doi:10.1038/s41566-023-01252-7
Abstract
Nonlinear-wave mixing in optical microresonators offers new perspectives to generate compact optical-frequency microcombs, which enable an ever-growing number of applications. Microcombs exhibit a spectral profile that is primarily determined by their microresonator's dispersion; an example is the spectrum of dissipative Kerr solitons under anomalous group-velocity dispersion. Here, we introduce an inverse-design approach to spectrally shape microcombs, by optimizing an arbitrary meta-dispersion in a resonator. By incorporating the system's governing equation into a genetic algorithm, we are able to efficiently identify a dispersion profile that produces a microcomb closely matching a user-defined target spectrum, such as spectrally-flat combs or near-Gaussian pulses. We show a concrete implementation of these intricate optimized dispersion profiles, using selective bidirectional-mode hybridization in photonic-crystal resonators. Moreover, we fabricate and explore several microcomb generators with such flexible `meta' dispersion control. Their dispersion is not only controlled by the waveguide composing the resonator, but also by a corrugation inside the resonator, which geometrically controls the spectral distribution of the bidirectional coupling in the resonator. This approach provides programmable mode-by-mode frequency splitting and thus greatly increases the design space for controlling the nonlinear dynamics of optical states such as Kerr solitons.
arXiv comment16 pages, includes SI
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- Soliton Microcomb Generation in a III-V Photonic Crystal Cavity
- Multi-mode microcavity frequency engineering through a shifted grating in a photonic crystal ring
- Scalable freeform optimization of wide-aperture 3D metalenses by zoned discrete axisymmetry
- Optimization of the degenerate optical parametric oscillations threshold in bichromatically pumped microresonator
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- Ultra-low-loss Ta2O5 waveguide for integrated nonlinear photonics