Li Yongnan, Huang Shu-Wei, Li Bowen, Liu Hao, Yang Jinghui, Vinod Abhinav Kumar, Wang Ke, Yu Mingbin, Kwong Dim-Lee, Wang Hui-Tian, Wong Kenneth Kin-Yip, Wong Chee Wei
1Fang Lu Mesoscopic Optics and Quantum Electronics Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA.
2School of Physics and The MOE Key Laboratory of Weak Light Nonlinear Photonics, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
Light Sci Appl. 2020 Apr 3;9:52. doi: 10.1038/s41377-020-0290-3. eCollection 2020.
Femtosecond mode-locked laser frequency combs have served as the cornerstone in precision spectroscopy, all-optical atomic clocks, and measurements of ultrafast dynamics. Recently frequency microcombs based on nonlinear microresonators have been examined, exhibiting remarkable precision approaching that of laser frequency combs, on a solid-state chip-scale platform and from a fundamentally different physical origin. Despite recent successes, to date, the real-time dynamical origins and high-power stabilities of such frequency microcombs have not been fully addressed. Here, we unravel the transitional dynamics of frequency microcombs from chaotic background routes to femtosecond mode-locking in real time, enabled by our ultrafast temporal magnifier metrology and improved stability of dispersion-managed dissipative solitons. Through our dispersion-managed oscillator, we further report a stability zone that is more than an order-of-magnitude larger than its prior static homogeneous counterparts, providing a novel platform for understanding ultrafast dissipative dynamics and offering a new path towards high-power frequency microcombs.
飞秒锁模激光频率梳已成为精密光谱学、全光原子钟和超快动力学测量的基石。最近，基于非线性微谐振器的频率微梳已得到研究，在固态芯片规模平台上，从根本不同的物理起源出发，展现出接近激光频率梳的卓越精度。尽管最近取得了成功，但迄今为止，此类频率微梳的实时动态起源和高功率稳定性尚未得到充分解决。在此，我们通过超快时间放大镜计量学和改进的色散管理耗散孤子稳定性，实时揭示了频率微梳从混沌背景路径到飞秒锁模的过渡动力学。通过我们的色散管理振荡器，我们进一步报告了一个稳定性区域，其比之前的静态均匀对应区域大一个数量级以上，为理解超快耗散动力学提供了一个新平台，并为高功率频率微梳开辟了一条新途径。
