Solitons articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a strong interaction between the generated solitons and background light in a Brillouin-Kerr microcomb system. Based on this unique physical mechanism, they achieve a monostable single soliton microcomb and a turnkey single-soliton microcomb without employing any optical/electrical control or feedback.

    • Menghua Zhang
    • , Shulin Ding
    •  & Xiaoshun Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate a universal approach to achieve turnkey dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) frequency comb. Phase insensitivity, self-healing capability, deterministic selection of DKS state, and access to ultralow noise are all successfully accomplished.

    • Mingming Nie
    • , Jonathan Musgrave
    •  & Shu-Wei Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A microwave-rate soliton microcomb whose repetition rate can be modulated at 75 MHz. Moreover, the repetition rate can be locked to an external microwave reference by direct injection locking or feedback locking without external modulation.

    • Yang He
    • , Raymond Lopez-Rios
    •  & Qiang Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present a moving-parts-free approach for visualizing soliton motion in optical cavities that lifts the wavelength and speed constraints of contemporary pulsed laser diagnostic techniques.

    • Łukasz A. Sterczewski
    •  & Jarosław Sotor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Boosting conversion efficiency, coherence and spectral bandwidth of optical signals generated in integrated photonic devices is an important current challenge. Here, the authors present their observations of two-colour dissipative solitons, breathers and frequency combs resulting from second-harmonic generation in lithium-niobate ring microresonators.

    • Juanjuan Lu
    • , Danila N. Puzyrev
    •  & Hong X. Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Authors report quantum decoherence of dissipative Kerr solitons in normal-dispersion microresonators, also known as dark pulses. They show the quantum decoherence of dark pulses and their potential advantages over bright solitons in an AlGaAs-on-insulator system.

    • Chenghao Lao
    • , Xing Jin
    •  & Qi-Fan Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic lattice systems are powerful platforms for studying the influence of intrinsic nonlinearities on topological phenomena. Here the authors elucidate the topological transport of solitons in terms of Wannier functions displacement and they introduce a nonlinearity-induced topological transport effect that could be observed in ultracold quantum mixtures.

    • Nader Mostaan
    • , Fabian Grusdt
    •  & Nathan Goldman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fractal optical solitons were studied in theory while it is cumbersome their experimental realization in optics setups. Here, the authors find that breathing solitons in lasers constitute fractals―the devil’s staircases, which are around 3000 times more stable than classical ones.

    • Xiuqi Wu
    • , Ying Zhang
    •  & Heping Zeng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors find the missing link for soliton microcombs that exist at the boundary where the group velocity dispersion of light changes sign: zero-dispersion solitons. The resulting microresonator frequency comb, based in Si3N4, spans almost an octave.

    • Miles H. Anderson
    • , Wenle Weng
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding noise dynamics in frequency combs is crucial for applications. Here, the authors study the phase noise dynamics and the linewidth of soliton microcombs, revealing that some comb lines can be more quiet than the pump laser itself.

    • Fuchuan Lei
    • , Zhichao Ye
    •  & Victor Torres-Company

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic integrated systems can be harnessed for fast and efficient optical telecommunication and metrology technologies. Here the authors develop a dual-soliton microcomb technique for massively parallel coherent laser ranging that requires only a single laser and a single photoreceiver.

    • Anton Lukashchuk
    • , Johann Riemensberger
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A Kerr-nonlinear resonator with normal dispersion supports bright and dark pulse states. With photonic crystal ring resonators, this work demonstrates a continuum across these nonlinear states and explores the underlying mechanism.

    • Su-Peng Yu
    • , Erwan Lucas
    •  & Scott B. Papp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors demonstrate intra-cavity excitation and time-domain sampling of coherent optical phonons inside an active laser oscillator. They discover that Terahertz crystal vibrations link successive ultrashort solitons which offers an approach to highspeed Raman spectroscopy inside laser cavities.

    • Alexandra Völkel
    • , Luca Nimmesgern
    •  & Georg Herink

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ’Here the authors provide the demonstration of platicon comb generation in an integrated photonic chip using laser self-injection locking, They take advantage of platicons generation in normal GVD resonators, which significantly relaxes the material and geometry design restrictions

    • Grigory Lihachev
    • , Wenle Weng
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kerr frequency combs are a promising laser source for future optical networks. The authors demonstrate coherence-cloning between two remote Kerr combs and improve optical coherent communication in terms of performance, power consumption, and simplicity.

    • Yong Geng
    • , Heng Zhou
    •  & Kun Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Discrete time crystals are described by a subharmonic response with respect to an external drive and have been mostly observed in closed periodically-driven systems. Here, the authors demonstrate a dissipative discrete time crystal in a Kerr-nonlinear optical microcavity pumped by two lasers.

    • Hossein Taheri
    • , Andrey B. Matsko
    •  & Krzysztof Sacha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coherence degradation of pulses synchronized to optical cavities is an issue for ultrahigh-repetition-rate lasing. Here the authors demonstrate synchronized multi-wavelength mode-locked soliton fiber lasers generating ultrafast outputs from two to five wavelengths with a high sub-pulse repetition rate.

    • Dong Mao
    • , Huaqiang Wang
    •  & Jianlin Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chip-based architectures for mid-infrared gas sensing could enable many applications. In this direction, the authors demonstrate a microcomb-based dual-comb spectroscopy sensor with GHz resolution in the mid-IR band, with stability completely determined by a single high-Q microresonator.

    • Chengying Bao
    • , Zhiquan Yuan
    •  & Kerry J. Vahala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative solitons and their symmetry breaking is important for photonic applications. Here the authors show that dissipative solitons can undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking in a two-component nonlinear optical ring resonator, resulting in the coexistence of distinct vectorial solitons with asymmetric, mirror-like states of polarization.

    • Gang Xu
    • , Alexander U. Nielsen
    •  & Miro Erkintalo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate an on-demand generation of perfect soliton crystal using synthesized potential field. The individual solitons can also be controlled, for example oscillate around their equilibrium position, by the external field.

    • Zhizhou Lu
    • , Hao-Jing Chen
    •  & Wenfu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors explore the noise spectrum of soliton microcomb when the pump is decoupled from the solitons motion by balancing the Raman shift with the emitted dispersive wave. Based on the analysis of the phase noise and the soliton repetition rate, they identify the uncorrelated thermal fluctuations as underlying mechanism.

    • Qi-Fan Yang
    • , Qing-Xin Ji
    •  & Kerry Vahala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors generate dissipative Kerr solitons with stable repetition rates and low optical power threshold. They achieve this by actively switching the bias current of injection-locked III-V semiconductor lasers and pulse-pumping crystalline and integrated microresonators with picosecond laser pulses.

    • Wenle Weng
    • , Aleksandra Kaszubowska-Anandarajah
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superluminescent diodes, that provide a broadband spectrum are typically used in spectral domain coherence tomography. Here, the authors use chipscale silicon nitride resonators to generate soliton microcombs with a lower noise flor that could substitute the diode sources.

    • Paul J. Marchand
    • , Johann Riemensberger
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Broadband frequency combs are a key enabling technology for frequency metrology and spectroscopy. Here, the authors demonstrate that the spectrum of a soliton microcomb can be extended by bichromatic pumping resulting in two combs that synchronize their repetition rate via cross-phase modulation.

    • Shuangyou Zhang
    • , Jonathan M. Silver
    •  & Pascal Del’Haye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For advanced microcomb applications, the exact detection of the high repetition rate becomes difficult due to the limited bandwidth of the photodiodes. Here, the authors present a Vernier dual-comb method to sample the main soliton comb and divide the repetition rate by a generating low frequency beat notes.

    • Beichen Wang
    • , Zijiao Yang
    •  & Xu Yi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules of solitons provide insight into fundamental interactions between them and the underlying nonlinear system. The reported heteronuclear molecules, comprised of dissipative solitons with distinct frequencies, temporal widths, and energies enter the multistability regime and yield in interlocked frequency combs.

    • Wenle Weng
    • , Romain Bouchand
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors demonstrate the use of chaos to obtain 2-octave comb generation. The deformation lifts the circular symmetry and creates chaotic tunneling channels that enable broadband collection of intracavity emission with a single waveguide, introducing a new degree of freedom to microcomb studies.

    • Hao-Jing Chen
    • , Qing-Xin Ji
    •  & Yun-Feng Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Due to three-dimensional, stochastic and non-repeatable transitions of dissipative solitons, it is challenging to monitor their full dynamics. Here, the authors resolve the dynamics by wavelength and along two spatial dimensions with up to trillions of frames per second using compressed ultrafast photography.

    • Joseph C. Jing
    • , Xiaoming Wei
    •  & Lihong V. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Edge states are excitations existing at the boundary of truncated periodic materials with specific spectral degeneracies, and their properties are enriched when materials possess a nonlinear response. Here, the authors provide experimental evidence of edge soliton formation in a nonlinear photonic graphene lattice induced in an atomic vapour cell.

    • Zhaoyang Zhang
    • , Rong Wang
    •  & Min Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to satisfy a wide range of modern microwave applications, improved methods are needed to produce low-noise microwave signals. Here the authors demonstrate ultra-low noise microwave synthesis via optical frequency division using a transfer oscillator method applied to a microresonator-based comb on the path to future self-referenced integrated sources.

    • Erwan Lucas
    • , Pierre Brochard
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theories state that transitions between extreme waves are allowed but experimental confirmations are lacking because of lack of control strategies. Here, the authors propose and experimentally report, for the first time, the use of topological indices to control the generation of extreme waves.

    • Giulia Marcucci
    • , Davide Pierangeli
    •  & Claudio Conti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multimode optical fibers can be used to observe complex intermodal processes like optical solitons. Here, Eftekhar et al. study accelerated nonlinear interaction in multimode fibers with a tapered core diameter and its effect on the temporal and spectral behavior of the multimode solitons.

    • M. A. Eftekhar
    • , Z. Sanjabi-Eznaveh
    •  & D. N. Christodoulides

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has recently been shown that optical solitons can form stably bound states, so-called soliton molecules. Here, Wang et al. demonstrate stable soliton molecule complexes and explore the different bonds represented by the inter- and intra-molecular coupling.

    • Z. Q. Wang
    • , K. Nithyanandan
    •  & Ph. Grelu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Real-time characterisation of nonlinear processes in the time domain is challenging. Here, Närhi et al. show that machine learning techniques can help overcome this limitation and use them to infer time-domain properties of optical fibre modulation instability from spectral intensity measurements.

    • Mikko Närhi
    • , Lauri Salmela
    •  & Goëry Genty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to their lack of a conventional cavity, random lasers typically do not emit a defined beam in a specific direction. Here, the authors combine spatial solitons and collinear pumping to achieve light-confined random lasing with a smooth output profile and a controllable direction of emission.

    • Sreekanth Perumbilavil
    • , Armando Piccardi
    •  & Gaetano Assanto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to study the dynamics of solitons in microresonators, which underlie nonlinear phenomena like Kerr comb generation, both high temporal resolution and long record times are needed. Here, the authors develop a coherent sampling method to directly image the temporal behavior of solitons.

    • Xu Yi
    • , Qi-Fan Yang
    •  & Kerry Vahala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative Kerr solitons in optical microresonators provide excellent optical frequency comb sources for precision metrology and imaging techniques. Here, Karpov et al. demonstrate a chipscale octave-spanning soliton-based comb, operating at 1 μm wavelength that covers the biological imaging window.

    • Maxim Karpov
    • , Martin H. P. Pfeiffer
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cherenkov radiation is generated from fast electrons and its optical analogue plays an important role in many nonlinear optical effects. Here, Skryabin et al. demonstrate backward-propagating photonic Cherenkov radiation generated from solitons in a semiconductor exciton-polariton system.

    • D. V. Skryabin
    • , Y. V. Kartashov
    •  & D. N. Krizhanovskii

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chip-based microresonator frequency combs are currently limited to the infrared spectral region. Here, the authors generate combs whose center frequency approaches the visible spectrum enabled by combining geometrical and mode-hybridization dispersion control in silica microresonators.

    • Seung Hoon Lee
    • , Dong Yoon Oh
    •  & Kerry Vahala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dispersive wave emission in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibres has been possible in the visible and ultraviolet via the optical Kerr effect. Here, Köttig et al. demonstrate dispersive waves generated by an additional transient anomalous dispersion from gas ionization in the mid-infrared.

    • F. Köttig
    • , D. Novoa
    •  & P. St.J. Russell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative Kerr solitons enable optical frequency comb generation in microresonators, but these solitons can undergo a breathing transition which impacts the stability of such microcombs. Here, Lucas et al. deterministically induce soliton breathing and directly observe the spatiotemporal dynamics.

    • E. Lucas
    • , M. Karpov
    •  & T. J. Kippenberg

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