Arnaud Mussot

We report the experimental and numerical demonstration of stimulated Brillouin scattering-induced stabilization of Kerr-driven modulation instability in fiber Fabry–Perot resonators. We show that Brillouin scattering shapes the modulation instability spectrum into a stable multi–free-spectral-range cascade that is otherwise unstable in the absence of Brillouin effects. We further identify that this stabilization originates from the real part of the Brillouin response, leading to an asymmetric Kerr–Brillouin interaction governed by the relative position of the Brillouin frequency shift with respect to the cavity resonances. These results establish stimulated Brillouin scattering as an additional degree of freedom for controlling nonlinear dynamics in Kerr resonators.

We report on the interaction between stimulated Brillouin scattering and temporal cavity solitons (CSs) in doubly resonant ring resonators. Our experiments are performed in coherently driven passive optical-fiber resonators. We demonstrate that the interplay between four-wave mixing and cascade Brillouin lasing spontaneously generates patterns of CSs on a temporal grid at twice the Brillouin-shift. These patterns are shown to be highly stable owing to a long-range locking mechanism mediated by the acoustic oscillation generated by the solitons. We introduce a unified mean-field model of the cavity to describe the dynamics between the coupled forward and backward waves under coherent driving. This model reproduces the experimental results with high accuracy and explains the paracrystalline structures of the soliton pattern. Our findings significantly advance the understanding of hybrid Brillouin–Kerr optical frequency combs.

We numerically study programmable laser cavity soliton generation within a nested cavity architecture. The nested architecture includes a fibered Fabry–Pérot resonator as well as a photonic device used as a programmable delay-line, which enables repetition rate control from GHz to THz. In the proposed approach, the pulse repetition rate is adjusted based on a temporal interleaving process obtained after propagation through the programmable delay-line structure. Our numerical study demonstrates how a programmable delay-line can be leveraged to obtain a highly-tunable passively mode-locked laser via harmonic mode-locking, featuring the formation of an energy efficient yet reconfigurable laser cavity soliton pulses. In particular, we outline practical guidelines for experimental implementation, and the proposed architecture is expected to provide enhanced versatility for compact and tunable frequency comb generation.

We demonstrate a polarization-maintaining, all-fiber electro-optic modulation comb source delivering 27.5 fs pulses at 10 GHz and 13 kW peak power. A novel architecture based on cascaded normal- and anomalous-dispersion fibers, with minimal splice loss, enables multi-stage spectral broadening and compression leading to 100 compression factor, with 65% conversion efficiency from the amplifier. These results set a new benchmark for high-repetition-rate ultra-fast comb sources suitable for nonlinear spectroscopy and dual-comb metrology.

This study demonstrates that self-injection locking (SIL) of a distributed feedback (DFB) laser to a high-Q fiber Fabry Perot (FFP) resonator, fabricated with highly nonlinear fiber, allows optical frequency combs (OFC) generation with a laser power as low as 100 mW. More precisely, cavity soliton (CS) regime has been observed in this configuration, along with other types of combs. The laser stabilization using SIL is described. Then the system’s behavior is analyzed through modeling the laser’s dynamics and comparing the model results to experimental tuning curve measurements. Our findings highlight the critical role of the initial phase of the fiber link between laser and FFP in determining the stability and effectiveness of the locking process. We explore the dynamics of the nonlinear SIL process while varying the laser current, revealing the transition from modulation instability to chaotic comb states, and eventually to soliton formation as the system moves from an effective blue-detuned to an effective red-detuned regime. Notably, the inclusion of self-phase modulation (SPM) in the SIL model predicts accessibility of the narrow soliton existence range. These results highlight the potential of SIL in FFP resonators for low-power, stable OFC generation, offering a promising path forward for practical applications.

We investigate analytically, numerically and experimentally the gain-through-filtering modulation instability in a hybrid driven Kerr cavity in the normal dispersion regime including an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. We show that, thanks to the increased cavity finesse enabled by the intracavity optical gain, the injection power threshold for the modulation instability can be substantially reduced, and the energy transfer to spectral sidebands enhanced. Our findings demonstrate how to improve efficiency and bandwidth in optical frequency comb generation based on the gain-through-filtering modulation instability.

This study demonstrates that self-injection locking (SIL) of a distributed feedback (DFB) laser to a high-Q fiber Fabry Perot (FFP) resonator, fabricated with highly nonlinear fiber, allows optical frequency combs (OFC) generation with a laser power as low as 100 mW. More precisely, cavity soliton (CS) regime has been observed in this configuration, along with other types of combs. The laser stabilization using SIL is described. Then the system's behavior is analyzed through modeling the laser's dynamics and comparing the model results to experimental tuning curve measurements. Our findings highlight the critical role of the initial phase of the fiber link between laser and FFP in determining the stability and effectiveness of the locking process. We explore the dynamics of the nonlinear SIL process while varying the laser current, revealing the transition from modulation instability to chaotic comb states, and eventually to soliton formation as the system moves from an effective blue-detuned to an effective red-detuned regime. Notably, the inclusion of self-phase modulation (SPM) in the SIL model predicts accessibility of the narrow soliton existence range. These results highlight the potential of SIL in FFP resonators for low-power, stable OFC generation, offering a promising path forward for practical applications.

We report the generation of a stable, broadband frequency comb, covering more than 10 THz, using a dispersion fiber Fabry-Perot resonator with a high quality factor of 69 millions. This platform ensures robust and easy integration into photonic devices via FC/PC connectors, and feature quality factors comparable to those of microresonators. We demonstrate a passive mode-locking phenomenon induced by the coherent interaction of the Kerr effect and Brillouin scattering, which generates a frequency comb with a repetition rate exceeding the free spectral range of the cavity. This parametric process modulates the continuous wave (CW) pump and can then be transformed into a train of almost square-wave pulses thanks to the generation of switching waves. Our results are supported by advanced numerical simulations, and theoretical derivations that include the Brillouin effect in the Fabry-Perot configuration. The very high stable feature of this optical frequency comb lying in the GHz range is critical to several applications ranging from telecommunication, spectroscopy and advanced microwave generation.

We report the generation of self-frequency-shifting Raman quasi-solitons in a pulse-pumped high-Q fiber Fabry-Perot resonator in the weak normal dispersion regime. They are induced by modulation instability mediated by fourth-order dispersion in a regime where the Raman gain overwhelms the cavity losses. The resulting spectrum, spanning over 50 THz, is reminiscent of the supercontinuum generated in single-pass waveguides. For the first time to our knowledge, we clearly identify this process using a dispersive Fourier transform experiment. Additionally, we demonstrate the suppression of modulation instability by tuning the synchronization mismatch between the pump repetition rate and the cavity roundtrip time, enabling the generation of a standard dissipative Kerr soliton in this system. These observations align remarkably well with numerical simulations based on a generalized Lugiato-Lefever equation, incorporating the Raman response of the optical fiber.