Generation and dynamics of solitonic pulses due to pump amplitude modulation at normal group-velocity dispersion

Abstract

We studied the generation and dynamics of solitonic pulses, platicons, in microresonators at normal group velocity dispersion due to the pump amplitude modulation. We proposed that, if the required frequency of amplitude modulation is too large for available modulators, it is possible to use subharmonic phase modulation for platicon generation. It was also demonstrated that it is possible to control the repetition rate of platicons by tuning the modulation frequency. The tuning range for platicons was found to be much wider than for bright solitons. We also studied the influence of high-order dispersion on platicon properties. It was shown that both third-order dispersion and pump modulation govern platicon dynamics, making it quite different from the dynamics of dissipative Kerr solitons. Third-order dispersion was also shown to significantly affect the optimal conditions for the platicon generation and repetition rate tuning range.