近日，西班牙巴仑西亚理工大学的Carles Milián课题组取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们发现了二维频率梳中的光子蛇态。相关研究成果已于2023年5月29日在国际知名学术期刊《自然—光子学》上发表。

该研究团队展示了一种能够驾驭光学蛇不稳定性的过程，从而实现了稳定而鲁棒的二维zigzag态。他们发现这种新型非线性波存在于圆柱微腔的双曲线区域，并且自然对应于具有频谱异质性和内在同步性的二维频率梳。该研究揭示了这类时空光子蛇态存在的条件，并确认其对扰动具有显著的鲁棒性。这一发现为频率梳的生成带来了新的范式，为通信、计量学和光谱学等领域开启了广泛的应用前景。

据悉，驯服众多固有于非线性光学现象中的不稳定性对于现代光子学至关重要。特别是，所谓的蛇形不稳定性普遍被认为会严重扭曲局部波纹，导致短暂且短寿命的动态状态的出现，并最终衰减。这种现象在非线性科学中无处不在，从河流的曲折到超流体的现象中都存在，并且迄今为止似乎仍然难以控制。

附：英文原文

Title: Photonic snake states in two-dimensional frequency combs

Author: Ivars, Salim B., Kartashov, Yaroslav V., de Crdoba, P. Fernndez, Conejero, J. Alberto, Torner, Lluis, Milián, Carles

Issue&Volume: 2023-05-29

Abstract: Taming the instabilities inherent to many nonlinear optical phenomena is of paramount importance for modern photonics. In particular, the so-called snake instability is universally known to severely distort localized wave stripes, leading to the occurrence of transient, short-lived dynamical states that eventually decay. This phenomenon is ubiquitous in nonlinear science—from river meandering to superfluids—and so far it apparently remains uncontrollable; however, here we show that optical snake instabilities can be harnessed by a process that leads to the formation of stationary and robust two-dimensional zigzag states. We find that such a new type of nonlinear waves exists in the hyperbolic regime of cylindrical microresonators, and that it naturally corresponds to two-dimensional frequency combs featuring spectral heterogeneity and intrinsic synchronization. We uncover the conditions of the existence of such spatiotemporal photonic snakes and confirm their remarkable robustness against perturbations. Our findings represent a new paradigm for frequency comb generation, thus opening the door to a whole range of applications in communications, metrology and spectroscopy.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01220-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-023-01220-1