Slow-light frequency combs and dissipative Kerr solitons in coupled-cavity waveguides

Abstract: We study Kerr frequency combs and dissipative Kerr solitons in silicon photonic crystal coupled-cavity waveguides (CCW) with globally optimized dispersion at telecom wavelengths. The corresponding threshold for comb generation is found to explicitly depend on the main CCW figures of merit, namely, mode volume, normal mode quality factor and slow-light group index. Our analysis is carried out by solving the non-linear dynamics of the CCW Bloch modes in presence of Kerr non-linearity and two-photon absorption. Our results open the way to CCW comb generation via dispersion engineering and slow-light enhancement.