† Corresponding author. E-mail:
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61475099 and 61922040), Program of State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, China (Grant No. KF201701), and the Key R&D Program of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No. 2018B030325002).
Based on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) with damping, detuning, and driving terms describing the evolution of signals in a Kerr microresonator, we apply periodic nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT) to the study of signals during the generation of the Kerr optical frequency combs (OFCs). We find that the signals in different states, including the Turing pattern, the chaos, the single soliton state, and the multi-solitons state, can be distinguished according to different distributions of the eigenvalue spectrum. Specially, the eigenvalue spectrum of the single soliton pulse is composed of a pair of conjugate symmetric discrete eigenvalues and the quasi-continuous eigenvalue spectrum with eye-like structure. Moreover, we have successfully demonstrated that the number of discrete eigenvalue pairs in the eigenvalue spectrum corresponds to the number of solitons formed in a round-trip time inside the Kerr microresonator. This work shows that some characteristics of the time-domain signal can be well reflected in the nonlinear domain.
The nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT), also known as the inverse scattering transform (IST), is a powerful mathematical tool to solve the problems of wave propagation in some certain nonlinear media, especially in the field of soliton theory.[1] In contrast with the linear Fourier transform (FT), where the signal is decomposed into the superposition of sine waves so as to obtain the frequency components in the linear frequency domain, the nonlinear Fourier transform can decompose the signal into soliton components and non-soliton components (also known as radiation components) to obtain the corresponding nonlinear frequency components.
In recent years, NFT has been widely used in the field of optical fiber communication. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) is the mathematical model to describe the signal propagation in the optical fiber channel.[2–4] Without considering the channel noise, NLSE can be approximated as an integrable partial differential equation. In this case, the complex evolution problems of time-domain signal and linear spectrum can be converted into a simple nonlinear spectrum evolution problem by using NFT.[5–7] Based on this characteristic, many researchers have carried out a series of theoretical studies and experiments to reduce the unfavorable restriction brought by fiber nonlinearity to optical fiber communication.[8–12] The realization of high-speed and reliable fiber communication system has proved the superiority of NFT in solving the NLSE problem.[13–15] In 2018, Ryczkowski et al.[16] used NFT to analyze the transient dissipative soliton dynamics in a mode-locked laser, clearly observed the presence of local soliton content, and promoted the application of NFT in describing ultra-short pulses.
In this paper, we use NFT to study the temporal signals of Kerr optical frequency combs (OFCs) based on Kerr microresonator. The Kerr OFCs are presented as a series of precisely equidistant spectral lines with extremely narrow linewidth in the linear frequency domain, and the corresponding time-domain signals of OFCs in stable soliton state are presented as periodic ultra-short laser pulse sequences.[17,18] We can clearly distinguish the unstable state and different stable states of OFCs, including the chaos, the Turing patterns, and various soliton states, according to the eigenvalue spectrum obtained by NFT for various temporal signals in the cavity. We also find that the number of discrete eigenvalue pairs is consistent with the number of solitons formed in the intracavity round-trip time.
The generation of Kerr OFCs is described by the spatiotemporal Lugiato–Lefever equation (LLE) whose normalized form follows[19,20]
We then consider the dimensionless longitudinal coordinate θ = ϕG in the anomalous GVD regime (β < 0), where
There are now a lot of detailed NFT algorithms for NLSE, both for periodic boundary condition[23] and non-periodic boundary condition, and the latter is usually called vanishing boundary condition.[24] The basic idea for Eq. (
For the standard NLSE, its NFT is indeed the IST of Zakharov–Shabat problem (ZSP) which can be expressed in the following form:[1]
Since any signal can be regarded as the combination of soliton component and radiation component, although either of these two can be absent for some specific case,[26] the eigenvalue spectrum obtained from NFT actually consists of two parts, the eigenvalues corresponding to the soliton component and the eigenvalues corresponding to the radiation component of the signal. Figure
According to Matsuda et al.,[27] signals in the form of u(t) = A sech (At) (A is a real number) can be a soliton solution (i.e., stationary solution) of NLSE and have definite eigenvalues ± j A/2. When the phase of such a signal is constant, the eigenvalue occurs at the same position, just as Figs.
Based on the above property, we can study different signals in the Kerr microresonator, and we use two different sets of parameters for the Kerr OFCs simulation. We first start with a simple case of forming an optical frequency comb with one-way scan of the pump laser. Figure
As can be seen from Fig.
Figure
Next, we consider the more complex case of Kerr OFCs generation with multiple temporal solitons existing in a round-trip time. The necessary simulation parameters are listed as in Ref. [22] Pin = 2 W, λ0 = 1553 nm, κ/2π = 300 MHz, n0 = 2.4, n2 = 2.4 × 10−19 m2/W, D1/2π = 100 GHz, D2/2π = 2.5 MHz, and Veff = 1.0 × 10−15 m3. Here, we apply the different parameter η = 0.50 which is the critical coupling efficiency. The resulted temporal evolution diagram is shown in Fig.
First, we analyze the time-domain signals of Turing pattern and single soliton state. Figure
Then we analyze the chaotic and multi-solitons temporal signals. The temporal characteristics for the chaos and 4-solitons state are captured as Fig.
We also perform the periodic nonlinear Fourier transform analysis of 7-solitons and 9-solitons signals, and obtain the nonlinear eigenvalue spectra as shown in Fig.
In summary, based on the fact that the normalized LLE can be regarded as the NLSE including several other effects, we can apply periodic NFT to the analysis of signals during the generation of OFCs in the Kerr microresonator. We finally find that the signals at different states can be distinguished clearly according to different distributions of the eigenvalue spectrum. For the time-domain signal extracted from a chaotic state, its eigenvalue distribution is also disordered. The eigenvalue spectrum of the Turing pattern is characterized by several strictly symmetric isolated eigenvalue pairs. Specially, the eigenvalue spectrum of the single soliton pulse is composed of a pair of conjugate symmetric isolated eigenvalues and the quasi-continuous eigenvalue spectrum with eye-like structure. Take NFT analysis directly for the multi-solitons time-domain signal in the cavity, the eigenvalue spectrum obtained is complex but ordered. By adjusting the signal amplitude, we can approximately capture the waveforms corresponding to the soliton components. In this way, obvious soliton eigenvalue pairs are obtained by NFT and its number is consistent with the number of solitons formed in the microresonator.
In this work, we have discovered that there is a certain correlation between the nonlinear eigenvalue spectrum and the linear spectrum. However, the accurate correspondence needs to be studied in the future. And we hope to derive the mathematical form of amplitude adjustment in the case of multi-solitons from the expression of soliton solution in Kerr microresonator in next work for richer soliton dynamics analysis.
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