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Versatile optical frequency division with Kerr-induced synchronization at tunable microcomb synthetic dispersive waves

Nature Photonics volume 19, pages 36–43 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Kerr-induced synchronization (KIS) provides a key tool for the control and stabilization of a dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) frequency comb, enabled by the capture of a comb tooth by an injected reference laser. Efficient KIS relies on large locking bandwidth, meaning both the comb tooth and intracavity reference power need to be sufficiently large. Although KIS can theoretically occur at any comb tooth, large modal separations from the main pump to achieve large optical frequency division factors are often difficult or unfeasible due to cavity dispersion. While tailoring the dispersion to generate dispersive waves can support on-resonance KIS far from the main pump, this approach restricts synchronization to specific wavelengths. Here we demonstrate an alternative KIS method that allows efficient synchronization at arbitrary modes by multi-pumping a microresonator. This creates a multicolour DKS with a main and an auxiliary comb, the latter enabling the creation of a synthetic dispersive wave. As cross-phase modulation leads to a unique group velocity for both the soliton comb and the auxiliary comb, repetition rate disciplining of the auxiliary comb through KIS automatically controls the DKS microcomb. We explore this colour-KIS phenomenon theoretically and experimentally, showing control and tuning of the soliton microcomb repetition rate, resulting in optical frequency division independent of the main pump noise properties.

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Fig. 1: Concept of colour KIS.
Fig. 2: Theoretical study of the colour-KIS effect.
Fig. 3: DKS and new DW generated via auxiliary pumping.
Fig. 4: Repetition rate control and OFD through colour KIS.
Fig. 5: Colour-KIS noise OFD onto the DKS repetition rate.
Fig. 6: Tunability of the secondary colour comb tooth for colour-KIS frequency versatility.

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Data availability

The data that supports the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

Code availability

The simulation code is available from the authors through the pyLLE package available online38, with a modification that is available upon reasonable request, using the inputs and parameters presented in this work.

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Acknowledgements

The scientific colour map batlow39 and subsequent colour set is used in this study to prevent visual distortion of the data and exclusion of readers with colour-vision deficiencies40. We acknowledge partial funding support from the Space Vehicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Atomic-Photonic Integration programme of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the NIST-on-a-chip programme of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. P.S. and C.M. acknowledge support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant number FA9550-20-1-0357) and the National Science Foundation (grant number ECCS-18-07272). We thank S. Krzyzewski and M. Davanço for insightful feedback. G.M. also thanks T.B.M.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Grégory Moille & Kartik Srinivasan

  2. Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Grégory Moille & Kartik Srinivasan

  3. University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Pradyoth Shandilya, Alioune Niang, Curtis Menyuk & Gary Carter

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  1. Grégory Moille
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  2. Pradyoth Shandilya
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Contributions

G.M. and K.S. led the project. G.M. designed the resonators and performed the measurements and simulations. P.S. and C.M. helped with the theoretical and numerical understanding. A.N. and G.C. helped with the experimental understanding. K.S. helped with data analysis. G.M. and K.S. wrote the paper, with input from all authors. All the authors contributed to and discussed the content of this paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Grégory Moille or Kartik Srinivasan.

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Competing interests

G.M., C.M. and K.S have submitted a provisional patent application based on aspects of the work presented in this paper. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Photonics thanks Mengxi Tan and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Sections 1–4, Figs. 1–4 and References.

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Moille, G., Shandilya, P., Niang, A. et al. Versatile optical frequency division with Kerr-induced synchronization at tunable microcomb synthetic dispersive waves. Nat. Photon. 19, 36–43 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01540-w

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