Our group will be at CLEO Europe in Munich from June 26th to June 30th and present our research projects in 9 talks.
Link to conference program

Our new paper on quintic-dispersion microresonator solitons has been published in Laser & Photonics Review. Our study demonstrates the first observation of solitons induced by fifth-order dispersion. Read more: Laser Photonics Rev., 2300075 (2023).

Congratulations to Arghadeep Pal for winning the best poster award at the spring school-2023 organised by the Max Planck School of Photonics (MPSP). The poster describes Machine Learning assisted prediction of microresonator structure for desired dispersion profiles. Read more: Opt. Express 31, 8020-8028 (2023).

We have used machine learning algorithms to predict structures of microresonators from dispersion profiles. This work lays the foundation of application of machine learning in inverse design of microring resonators.
https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.479899 – arXiv

Our new paper on optical light plateaus in microresonators has been published. This work has been done in collaboration with Gian-Luca Oppo and Graeme Campbell at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.106.043507 – arXiv

Our new paper on bound states of dark and bright solitons in microresonators has been published in PRL. This can be used to broaden frequency combs across different dispersion regimes.
➔ Physical Review Letters, 128, 033901
➔ Press Release

Together with colleagues from Switzerland, Germany and the UK we have demonstrated a polarization controller that is operated purely by light using the Kerr-effect.
➔ Nature Communications, 13, 398
➔ Press Release

Our work on Kerr-effect enhancement of the rotation sensitivity of microresonator gyroscopes has been published in Optica.
➔ Optica 8, 1219-1226

We report the experimental and numerical observation of oscillatory switching between counter-propagating light beams in Kerr ring microresonators. This effect well captured by a simple coupled dynamical system featuring only the self- and cross-phase Kerr nonlinearities. Self-switching of counterpropagating light is robust for realizing controllable, all-optical generation of waveforms, signal encoding, and chaotic cryptography. Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 043901

We demonstrate how the Kerr nonlinearity can be a key enabler for many digital photonic circuits. It allows access to bistable states needed for all-optical memories and switches that can operate at a single laser frequency with no additional electrical power. Opt. Express 29, 2193-2203 (2021)

We demonstrate a technique for suppressing backscattered light in a whispering-gallery-mode resonator by positioning a sub-wavelength-size scatterer within its evanescent field, achieving at least 34 dB suppression compared to the intrinsic backscattering. Read more: Light Sci Appl 9, 204 (2020) or press release.

Broadband frequency combs are a key enabling technology for frequency metrology and spectroscopy. Here, we demonstrate that the spectrum of a soliton microcomb can be extended by bi-chromatic pumping resulting in two combs that synchronize their repetition rate via cross-phase modulation. Read more: Nat Commun 11, 6384 (2020)

Toby recently visited Airbus Defence and Space to perform R&D experiments on advanced space optics components. The visit was a collaboration between Airbus and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light through the Horizon 2020 MICROCOMB network.

Congratulations to Andreas Svela for winning a prize for his talk at the Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences research showcase. The showcase presentation is aimed at a broader audience, explaining the backscatter suppression work published in Light Sci Appl 9, 204 (2020). Watch the Presentation here.

Our group will be presenting our most recent research results at the FiO-LS virtual conference. All our talks are on Wednesday 16 September (CET times).

• 14:30 George Ghalanos “Splitting of Microresonator Modes with the Kerr-Nonlinearity”
• 21:00 Niall Moroney “Microresonator Logic Gates”
• 02:30 (17 Sept) Shuangyou Zhang “Spectrally Extended Microcombs with an Auxiliary Laser”

Our paper on the direct measurement of the mode splitting induced by the Kerr effect has been published in Physical Review Letters. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 223901

Congratulations to Leonardo for passing his (virtual) PhD viva! Thanks also to his examiners and co-supervisors Derryck Reid, Frank Vollmer, and Marcello Ferrera.

Our paper on logic gates Based on Interaction of Counterpropagating Light in Microresonators has been published in Journal of Lightwave Technology. J. Lightwave Technol. 38, 1414-1419

Our paper on the effects of self- and cross-phase modulation on the spontaneous symmetry breaking of light in ring resonators has been published in Physical Review A. Phys. Rev. A 101, 013823

I am happy to announce that our research will move to the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in January 2020.

Our paper on the generation of stabilized THz-waves with a soliton microcomb has been published in Optics Express. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.035257

Lewis Hill received the “Conference Stand-out Presentation”-Award at this year’s Institute of Physics CAPS conference in Swansea. Congratulations Lewis!

Together with Alessia Pasquazi’s group at the University of Sussex we published a paper on thermo-optical pulsing in a nested microresonator system embedded in a ring laser.
Optics Express 27, 19242-19254