Temporal imaging of the real-time dynamics in soliton crystals

Dissipative Kerr solitons are pulses generated in Kerr nonlinear optical resonators, which achieve a combination between nonlinear optical physics and the integrated photonics. Recent work has found temporally-organized soliton ensembles, often called soliton crystal, could provide additional freedoms in engineering spectra and temporal behaviors compared to single solitons. Previous studies focus on the spectra and slow-time evolution, while less effort is contributed to dynamics in the round-trip scale. The underlying ultrafast dynamics are critical to understanding the formation, transformation, and quenching of these mode-locked states.
Here, we demonstrate the generation of various soliton crystals and breather combs. We use a panoramic-reconstruction temporal imaging system based on a four-wave mixing time lens to capture the ultrafast dynamics. The phenomena we have observed include temporal evolution in single states and state-to-state transitions. As shown in a previous study, the graphene-nitride microresonator has the capability to tune the cavity dispersion and cavity loss using an electrical gate or optical pump. The ultrafast dynamics have the potential to achieve a deterministic realization using the graphene-nitride microresonator.