Abstract

Dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) in continuous-wave (CW) laser-driven microresonators provide access to low-noise ultrashort pulses and frequency combs (microcombs) with repetition rates from GHz to THz. Microcombs have found applications in sensing, communication, and signal processing [1]; however, a major practical limitation for out-of-lab application has been the stabilization and control of the pump laser detuning, necessitating complex pump lasers and/or operating procedures. This is particular challening during DKS initiation when thermo-optic effects cause a rapid (∼ µs) change in resonance frequency [2]. An elegant solution to this problem is self-injection locking (SIL), where a resonant back-scattering from the resonator can intrinsically injection-lock the driving laser to the resonator [3, 4]. However, this back-scattering is usually caused by random imperfections or defects in the resonator, and those are neither wanted nor can they yield predictable sample characteristics.

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