Dissipative Kerr solitons in resonant frequency combs offer a promising route for ultrafast mode-locking, precision spectroscopy and time-frequency standards. The dynamics for the dissipative soliton generation, however, are intrinsically intertwined with thermal nonlinearities, limiting the soliton generation parameter map and statistical success probabilities of the solitary state. Here, via use of an auxiliary laser heating approach to suppress thermal dragging dynamics in dissipative soliton comb formation, we demonstrate stable Kerr soliton singlet formation and soliton bursts. First, we access a new soliton existence range with an inverse-sloped Kerr soliton evolution—diminishing soliton energy with increasing pump detuning. Second, we achieve deterministic transitions from Turing-like comb patterns directly into the dissipative Kerr soliton singlet pulse bypassing the chaotic states. This is achieved by avoiding subcomb overlaps at lower pump power, with near-identical singlet soliton comb generation over twenty instances. Third, with the red-detuned pump entrance route enabled, we uncover unique spontaneous soliton bursts in the direct formation of low-noise optical frequency combs from continuum background noise. The burst dynamics are due to the rapid entry and mutual attraction of the pump laser into the cavity mode, aided by the auxiliary laser and matching well with our numerical simulations. Enabled by the auxiliary-assisted frequency comb dynamics, we demonstrate an application of automatic soliton comb recovery and long-term stabilization against strong external perturbations. Our findings hold potential to expand the parameter space for ultrafast nonlinear dynamics and precision optical frequency comb stabilization.

Dissipative Kerr soliton microcombs have been recognized as a promising multi-wavelength laser source for fiber optical communications, as their comb lines possess frequency and phase stability far beyond the independent lasers. Especially, for coherent optical communications, a highly beneficial but rarely explored target is to re-generate a Kerr soliton microcomb as the receiver local oscillators that conserve the frequency and phase property of the incoming data carriers, so that to enable coherent detection with minimized optical and electrical compensations. Here, via pump laser conveying and two-point locking, we implement re-generation of a Kerr soliton microcomb that faithfully clones the frequency and phase of another microcomb sent from 50 km away. Moreover, by using the coherence-cloned soliton microcombs as carriers and local oscillators, we demonstrate terabit coherent data interconnect, wherein traditional digital processes for frequency offset estimation are totally dispensed with, and carrier phase estimation is substantially simplified via slowed-down estimation rate per channel and joint estimation among multiple channels. Our work reveals that, in addition to providing a multitude of laser tones, regulating the frequency and phase of Kerr soliton microcombs among transmitters and receivers can significantly improve optical coherent communication in terms of performance, power consumption, and simplicity.

We demonstrate seamless channel multiplexing and high bitrate superchannel transmission of coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) data signals utilizing a dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) frequency comb generated in an on-chip microcavity. Aided by comb line multiplication through Nyquist pulse modulation, the high stability and mutual coherence among mode-locked Kerr comb lines are exploited for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, to eliminate the guard intervals between communication channels and achieve full spectral density bandwidth utilization. Spectral efficiency as high as 2.625 bit/Hz/s is obtained for 180 CO-OFDM bands encoded with 12.75 Gbaud 8-QAM data, adding to the total bitrate of 6.885 Tb/s within a 2.295 THz frequency comb bandwidth. This Letter confirms that high coherence is the key superiority of Kerr soliton frequency combs over independent laser diodes, as a multi-spectral coherent laser source for high-bandwidth high-spectral-density transmission networks.

Taking the advantage of ultrafast optical linear and nonlinear effects, all-optical signal processing (AOSP) enables manipulation, regeneration, and computing of information directly in optical domain without resorting to electronics. As a promising photonic integration platform, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) has the advantage of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility, low-loss, compact size as well as large optical nonlinearities. In this paper, we review the recent progress in the project granted to develop silicon-based reconfigurable AOSP chips, which aims to combine the merits of AOSP and silicon photonics to solve the unsustainable cost and energy challenges in future communication and big data applications. Three key challenges are identified in this project: (1) how to finely manipulate and reconfigure optical fields, (2) how to achieve ultra-low loss integrated silicon waveguides and significant enhancement of nonlinear effects, (3) how to mitigate crosstalk between optical, electrical and thermal components. By focusing on these key issues, the following major achievements are realized during the project. First, ultra-low loss silicon-based waveguides as well as ultra-high quality microresonators are developed by advancing key fabrication technologies as well as device structures. Integrated photonic filters with bandwidth and free spectral range reconfigurable in a wide range were realized to finely manipulate and select input light fields with a high degree of freedom. Second, several mechanisms and new designs that aim at nonlinear enhancement have been proposed, including optical ridge waveguides with reverse biased PIN junction, slot waveguides, multimode waveguides and parity-time symmetry coupled microresonators. Advanced AOSP operations are verified with these novel designs. Logical computations at 100 Gbit/s were demonstrated with self-developed, monolithic integrated programmable optical logic array. High-dimensional multi-value logic operations based on the four-wave mixing effect are realized. Multi-channel all-optical amplitude and phase regeneration technology is developed, and a multi-channel, multi-format, reconfigurable all-optical regeneration chip is realized. Expanding regeneration capacity via spatial dimension is also verified. Third, the crosstalk from optical as well as thermal coupling due to high-density integration are mitigated by developing novel optical designs and advanced packaging technologies, enabling high-density, small size, multi-channel and multi-functional operation with low power consumption. Finally, four programmable AOSP chips are developed, i.e., programmable photonic filter chip, programmable photonic logic operation chip, multi-dimensional all-optical regeneration chip, and multi-channel and multi-functional AOSP chip with packaging. The major achievements developed in this project pave the way toward ultra-low loss, high-speed, high-efficient, high-density information processing in future classical and non-classical communication and computing applications. Graphical Abstract

Single photon detector (SPD) has a maximum count rate due to its dead time, which results in that the dynamic range of photon counting optical time-domain reflectometry (PC-OTDR) de-creases with the length of monitored fiber. To further improve the dynamic range of PC-OTDR, we propose and demonstrate an externally time-gated scheme. The externally time-gated scheme is realized by using a high-speed optical switch, i.e. a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, to modulate the back-propagation optical signal, and to allow that only a certain segment of the fiber under test is monitored by the SPD. The feasibility of proposed scheme is first examined with theoretical analysis and simulation; then we experimentally demonstrate it with our experimental PC-OTDR testbed operating at 850 nm wavelength. In our studies, a dynamic range of 30.0 dB is achieved in a 70 meters long PC-OTDR system with 50 ns ex-ternal gates, corresponding to an improvement of 11.0 dB in dynamic range comparing with no gating operation. Further-more, with the improved dynamic range, a successful identifica-tion of a 0.37 dB loss event is detected with 30-seconds accu-mulation, which could not be identified without gating operation. Our scheme paves an avenue for developing PC-OTDR systems with high dynamic range.

Ultrafast physical random bit (PRB) generators and integrated schemes have proven to be valuable in a broad range of scientific and technological applications. In this study, we experimentally demonstrated a PRB scheme with a chaotic microcomb using a chip-scale integrated resonator. A microcomb contained hundreds of chaotic channels, and each comb tooth functioned as an entropy source for the PRB. First, a 12 Gbits/s PRB signal was obtained for each tooth channel with proper post-processing and passed the NIST Special Publication 800-22 statistical tests. The chaotic microcomb covered a wavelength range from 1430 to 1675 nm with a free spectral range (FSR) of 100 GHz. Consequently, the combined random bit sequence could achieve an ultra-high rate of about 4 Tbits/s (12 Gbits/s × 294 = 3.528 Tbits/s), with 294 teeth in the experimental microcomb. Additionally, denser microcombs were experimentally realized using an integrated resonator with 33.6 GHz FSR. A total of 805 chaotic comb teeth were observed and covered the wavelength range from 1430 to 1670 nm. In each tooth channel, 12 Gbits/s random sequences was generated, which passed the NIST test. Consequently, the total rate of the PRB was approximately 10 Tbits/s (12 Gbits/s × 805 = 9.66 Tbits/s). These results could offer potential chip solutions of Pbits/s PRB with the features of low cost and a high degree of parallelism. Graphical Abstract