Abstract

The high finesse of optical microresonators make them an ideal system for the study of nonlinear optics. In Kerr microresonators, most attention to date has focussed on their ability to generate coherent optical frequency combs [1]. However, it is well known from the field of nonlinear fiber optics that parametric oscillation in Kerr cavities that exhibit higher-order dispersion can also produce single pairs of phasematched parametric sidebands at very large detunings from the original pump frequency [2,3]. Recent experiments in both MgF₂ and silica microresonators have succeeded in demonstrating this effect [4,5]. However, only limited tunability has been achieved so far due to material or resonator characteristics. In this contribution, we present a set of three MgF₂ microresonators, each with a carefully engineered dispersion profile, that allow for wideband parametric oscillation with a total output tuning range in excess of an octave. Using a C-band pump laser, we are able to demonstrate tunable parametric oscillation of parametric sidebands that span from 1089 nm to 2647 nm.

© 2019 IEEE