Fig. 1: Natural onset of cavity solitons.
a, Microcomb laser. The non-linear Kerr microresonator (FSR 48.9 GHz) completes the fibre laser cavity (FSR 95 MHz). The global cavity controls are highlighted: a section containing the variable EDFA 980 nm pump, an optical filter, polarization controls and a delay stage to roughly match the repetition rate of the fibre cavity with a submultiple of the microcavity FSR. The fibre-coupled output ports of the microresonator are highlighted. b, Picture of the microresonator photonic chip with integrated fibre coupling. Scale bar, 10 mm. c, Repeatable start-up of the same single-soliton state from the off state, a temporal measurement of the microcomb output power (blue line), stabilizing to 4 mW. The EDFA pump power (green line) is increased from 0 to 350 mW in 2 s. d,e, Output spectrum (d) and autocorrelation (e) of the microcomb after the first start-up, at 30 s. ΔT = 20 ps is the time period corresponding to one round-trip of the microcavity. f,g, Output spectrum (f) and autocorrelation (g) of the microcomb emitted after the second start-up, at 95s. h Repeatable start-up of the same two-soliton state, selected by driving the EDFA at a higher regime power of 380 mW. A temporal measurement of the microcomb output power (blue line), stabilizing to 8 mW. The EDFA pump power (green line) is increased from 0 to 380 mW in 2 s. i,j, Spectrum (i) and autocorrelation (j) of the microcomb after the first start-up, at 45 s. k,l, Spectrum (k) and autocorrelation (l) after the second start-up, at 110 s.
