Dirac solitons in optical microresonators

Abstract

Dirac solitons: Equation describes new properties The intriguing properties of a new type of ultrashort light pulse in microresonators are described. Called a Dirac soliton, Heming Wang and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology say that understanding the properties of Dirac solitons is important at the fundamental level and also for providing a road map for generating ultrashort soliton pulses in the visible light range. The latter is relevant for applications such as miniature optical clocks and medical imaging techniques, for example. The solitons are generated in micron-scale devices called microresonators. And the soliton properties are controlled by the microresonator shape and choice of material. Wang and his colleagues also called attention to the importance of broadband nonlinear coupling in the microresonators for generation of the new Dirac soliton, which their equations show exhibits polarization twisting and asymmetrical optical spectra.