Frequency comb generation in microresonators at visible wavelengths has found applications in a variety of areas such as metrology, sensing, and imaging. To achieve Kerr combs based on four-wave mixing in a microresonator, dispersion must be in the anomalous regime. In this work, we demonstrate dispersion engineering in a microbubble resonator (MBR) fabricated by a two-CO$_2$ laser beam technique. By decreasing the wall thickness of the MBR down to 1.4 $μ$m, the zero dispersion wavelength shifts to values shorter than 764 nm, making phase matching possible around 765 nm. With the optical \textit{Q}-factor of the MBR modes being greater than $10^7$, four-wave mixing is observed at 765 nm for a pump power of 3 mW. By increasing the pump power, parametric oscillation is achieved, and a frequency comb with 14 comb lines is generated at visible wavelengths.
An optical resonator is often called fully tunable if its tunable range exceeds the spectral interval that contains the resonances at all the characteristic modes of this resonator. For the high Q-factor spheroidal and toroidal microresonators, this interval coincides with the azimuthal free spectral range. In this Letter, we demonstrate the first mechanically fully tunable spheroidal microresonator created of a silica microbubble having a 100 micron order radius and a micron order wall thickness. The tunable bandwidth of this resonator is more than two times greater than its azimuthal free sp…
Spectral and spatial filtering of whispering gallery modes in precision-engineered microbubble resonators
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University（冲绳科学技术大学院大学）；Department of Applied Physics, Waseda University（早稻田大学应用物理系）；Institute of Physics, Technische Universität Chemnitz（开姆尼茨工业大学物理研究所）
We theoretically and experimentally investigated the transition between modulation instability and Raman gain in a small silica microcavity with a large free-spectral range (FSR), which reveals that we can selectively switch from a four-wave mixing dominant state to a stimulated Raman scattering dominant state. Both the theoretical analysis and the experiment show that a Raman-dominant region is present between transitions of Kerr combs with different free-spectral range spacings. We can obtain a stable Kerr comb and a stable Raman state selectively by changing the driving power, coupling betw…
A high-Q silica whispering-gallery mode microresonator is an attractive platform on which to demonstrate a broad and phase-locked Raman comb in various wavelength regimes. Raman combs can be used for applications such as compact pulse laser sources, sensors, optical clocks, and coherence tomography. However, the formation dynamics of a Raman comb has not been well exploited. Here we study the dynamics of the Raman comb formation in silica rod microresonators, which have cavity free spectral ranges in microwave rates. We generated a Raman comb with a smooth spectral envelope and also observed t…
The influence of Raman scattering and higher order dispersions on solitons and frequency comb generation in silica microring resonators is investigated. The Raman effect introduces a threshold value in the resonator quality factor above which the frequency locked solitons can not exist and, instead, a rich dynamics characterized by generation of self-frequency shift- ing solitons and dispersive waves is observed. A mechanism of broadening of the Cherenkov radiation through Hopf instability of the frequency locked solitons is also reported.
We report on the experimental observation of coherent cavity soliton frequency combs in silica microspheres. Specifically, we demonstrate that careful alignment of the microsphere relative to the coupling fiber taper allows for the suppression of higher-order spatial modes, reducing mode interactions and enabling soliton formation. Our measurements show that the temporal cavity solitons have sub-100-fs durations, exhibit considerable Raman self-frequency shift, and generally come in groups of three or four, occasionally with equidistant spacing in the time domain. RF amplitude noise measuremen…
To date there are extensive studies of optical nonlinearities in whispering gallery resonators (WGRs) in the near and mid-infrared wavelengths. Pushing this research into the visible region is equally valuable. Here, we demonstrate a Kerr frequency comb and Raman lasing at 462 nm in an SiO2 WGR. Notably, due to the high optical intensities achieved, photodarkening is unavoidable and can quickly degrade the optical quality of both the coupling optical nanofiber and the microcavity even at very low pump powers. Nonetheless, stable stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and hyper-parametric oscillatio…
Laser-induced plasma formation and subsequent relaxation in solid dielectrics is the precursor to structural modifications that are accompanied by a permanent alteration of material properties. The decay of the electron-hole plasma through distinct relaxation channels determines the properties of the resulting modification. Based on an experimental arrangement combining a time-resolved transmission measurement with a cross-phase modulation measurement, we isolate the plasma formation and relaxation dynamics in the bulk of amorphous fused silica excited by femtosecond short-wavelength infrared …
A hollow bottle-like microresonator (BLMR) with ultra-high quality factor is fabricated from a microcapillary with nearly parabolic profile. At 1.55 $μm$ pumping, degenerate four-wave mixing can be observed for a BLMR of diameter 102 $μ$m. The parabolic profile of the BLMR guarantees a nearly zero waveguide dispersion, which is theoretically discussed in detail. From the simulation, at 1.55 $μ$m wavelength in such a BLMR, the fundamental bottle mode is in the anomalous dispersion regime, whilst the ordinary whispering gallery mode (WGM) confined at the center of the BLMR is in the normal dispe…
Multi-gigahertz mechanical vibrations stemming from interactions between light fields and matter, also known as acoustic phonons, have long been a subject of study. In recent years, specially designed functional devices have been developed to enhance the light-matter interaction strength, since the excitation of acoustic phonons by a continuous wave laser alone is insufficient. However, with such structure-dependent enhancements, the strength of the interaction cannot be aptly and instantly controlled. We propose a new technique to control the effective interaction strength, which is not via t…
Single-cycle pulses with deterministic carrier-envelope phase enable the study and control of light-matter interactions at the sub-cycle timescale, as well as the efficient generation of low-noise multi-octave frequency combs. However, current single-cycle light sources are difficult to implement and operate, hindering their application and accessibility in a wider range of research. In this paper, we present a single-cycle 100 MHz frequency comb in a compact, turn-key, and reliable all-silica-fiber format. This is achieved by amplifying 2 $μ$m seed pulses in heavily-doped Tm:fiber, followed b…
The emission of high-order harmonics from solids \cite{ghimire11a,schubert14a,luu15a,golde08a} under intense laser-pulse irradiation is revolutionizing our understanding of strong-field solid-light interactions \cite{ghimire11a,schubert14a,luu15a,vampa15b,yoshikawa17a,hafez18a,jurgens20a}, while simultaneously opening avenues towards novel, all-solid, coherent, short-wavelength table-top sources with tailored emission profiles and nanoscale light-field control\cite{franz19a,roscamCLEO21}. To date, broadband spectra have been generated well into the extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) \cite{luu15a,luu18b…
On-chip optical resonators have proven to be a promising platform for generating Kerr frequency combs. Whispering gallery mode resonators are particularly attractive because of their small footprint as well as low threshold and power consumption. This performance can be attributed to two characteristics: the cavity quality factor (Q) and the cavity dispersion. The input optical field into the cavity is amplified by the cavity Q, enabling nonlinear processes to occur with low input powers. In addition, the total span of the optical comb is governed by the dispersion. In an optical cavity-based …
We explore the possibility to excite the so-called embedded solitons in specially designed slot waveguides based on silicon and silica or silicon nanocrystals. This requires the excitation of the structure with quasi-TM polarized pulses -- for which Raman effect is absent -- and at a specific infrared wavelength for which only the second- and fourth-order group velocity coefficients are non-vanishing. Pulses launched in these conditions will generate a spectrally localized continuum, associated to a frequency comb coming from the spectral interference of many embedded solitons.
