Kerr Microresonator Soliton Frequency Combs at Cryogenic Temperatures

• Published in: Physical review applied 2019-01, Vol.12 (3), Article 034057
• Main Authors: Moille, Gregory, Lu, Xiyuan, Rao, Ashutosh, Li, Qing, Westly, Daron A, Ranzani, Leonardo, Papp, Scott B, Soltani, Mohammad, Srinivasan, Kartik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2331-7019; 2331-7019
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.12.034057

We investigate the accessibility and projected low-noise performance of single soliton Kerr frequency combs in silicon nitride microresonators enabled by operating at cryogenic temperatures as low as 7 K. The resulting two orders of magnitude reduction in the thermo-refractive coefficient relative to room-temperature enables direct access to single bright Kerr soliton states through adiabatic frequency tuning of the pump laser while remaining in thermal equilibrium. Our experimental results, supported by theoretical modeling, show that single solitons are easily accessible at temperatures below 60 K for the microresonator device under study. We further demonstrate that the cryogenic temperature primarily impacts the thermo-refractive coefficient. Other parameters critical to the generation of solitons, such as quality factor, dispersion, and effective nonlinearity, are unaltered. Finally, we discuss the potential improvement in thermo-refractive noise resulting from cryogenic operation. The results of this study open up new directions in advancing chip-scale frequency comb optical clocks and metrology at cryogenic temperatures.