Temporal dissipative structures in optical Kerr resonators with transient loss fluctuation

Abstract: Dissipative structures are the result of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a dynamic open system, which is induced by either the nonlinear effect or loss fluctuations. While optical temporal dissipative solitons in nonlinear Kerr cavities has been widely studied, they are operated in a red-detuned regime that is non-trivial to access. Here, we demonstrate an emergent dissipative soliton state in optical cavities in the presence of loss fluctuations, which is accessible by self-evolution of the system and is operated in resonance. We numerically investigate both the effect of loss modulation and the effect of saturable absorption, based on a standard dissipative and Kerr-nonlinear microresonator model, and observe stable soliton states in a close-to-zero detuning region. The self-starting soliton state working in resonance is potentially of wide interest, which would not only ease the operation for ultrafast temporal soliton generation, but also imply a high conversion efficiency for soliton micro-combs.