Nonlinear Oscillations and Bifurcations in Silicon Photonic Microresonators

Abstract

Silicon microdisks are optical resonators that can exhibit surprising nonlinear behavior. We present a new analysis of the dynamics of these resonators, elucidating the mathematical origin of spontaneous oscillations and deriving predictions for observed phenomena such as a frequency comb spectrum with MHz-scale repetition rate. We test predictions through laboratory experiment and numerical simulation.Comment: Main text: 5 pages, 6 figures. Supplemental material: 12 pages, 8 figure