Dually-pumped Kerr microcombs for spectrally pure radio frequency signal generation and time-keeping

摘要

A Kerr cavity soliton stabilization technique based on excitation by two continuous-wave pumps is proposedand theoretically and numerically investigated. Slow scanning of the second pump frequency near a combharmonic of the soliton excited by the main pump locks the auxiliary pump to the soliton within a locking range.With the pumps locked to two frequency references, comb degrees of freedom will be stabilized. Evidence ofstabilization and control of comb repetition rate using this technique is presented and the connection of duallypumpedmicrocombs to "time crystals" is highlighted. The proposed approach extends to form a universalframework expounding soliton crystallization in microresonators supporting dispersive waves emitted by higherorderdispersion or mode anti-crossing. It can also obviate the exacting demand of octave-spanning combs forself-referencing.