Deterministic generation and manipulation of temporal multi-solitons in a microresonator by continuous-wave triggering

We demonstrate the generation and manipulation of Kerr solitons by seeding a continuous wave (CW) driven nonlinear microresonator. This is achieved by directly modulating the intensity and/or phase of the cavity trigger field. By adjusting the CW trigger intensity, we can generate multi-soliton frequency combs deterministically. Numerical simulations show that stable, perfect soliton crystals form deterministically as well. The repetition rate can be controlled by adjusting the frequency offset between the CW trigger and the pump laser. Further investigations show that switching between intracavity soliton states can be controlled by seeding a different trigger field with suitable CW trigger intensities. Specifically, we demonstrate the writing and erasing of temporal solitons by modulating the external driving field. This modulation enables the simultaneous, independent manipulation of multiple solitons within a soliton train. These results facilitate straightforward generation and control of Kerr soliton microcombs in microresonators.