Abstract

In the past years, major scientific and technological progress has been made in the field of dissipative Kerr solitons (DKS) frequency combs on microresonators (microcombs) [1]. The generation of microcombs in Si₃N₄ microresonators exhibit broad bandwidth, high repetition rate, and low power consumption. These capabilities have opened a venue for applications within optical communication [2]. However, continuous operation and high power per comb line are needed in order to address the demands of system-level applications. Recent works have demonstrated the generation of bright solitons with unprecedented high power conversion efficiency using photonic molecules [3]. In this work, we report the continuous operation of a super-efficient DKS microcomb over 25 hours using a packaged module. The soliton state is maintained by the stabilization of thermal drifts and the on-chip optical power in the cavity. Our photonic molecule is composed of two coupled cavities with heaters placed on top. The fabricated device has been robustly packaged into a fiber-connectorized module to prevent random variations of the power coupling (Fig. 1 (a)).

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