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High-Power Picosecond Pulsed Kerr Soliton Microcombs

Liu Yang1,2,3, Keisuke Ogawa1, Ryomei Takabayashi2, Yuta Mototani2, Tatsuki Murakami1, Hajime Kumazaki1,2, Yongyong Zhuang3, Xiaoyong Wei3, and Shun Fujii1,*

  • 1Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan
  • 2Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan
  • 3Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education and International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

  • *Contact author: shun.fujii@phys.keio.ac.jp
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043802 – Published 26 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vdrs-2cvt

Abstract

Dissipative Kerr solitons in optical microresonators offer unparalleled platforms for ultralow-noise, high-repetition rate frequency comb generation with a compact form and driven by a continuous-wave laser. However, despite their attractive properties suited for practical applications, fundamental limitations regarding their output power and conversion efficiency still remain crucial problems that must be overcome. Here we discover unexplored operation regimes of Kerr soliton microcombs yielding high power and a picosecond pulse width by exploiting the strong mode interaction in birefringent crystalline microresonators. We demonstrate experimentally single-soliton microcombs with average powers of up to 24 and 38 mW as well as an improved conversion efficiency with a double-digit percentage and a microwave soliton repetition rate as low as 15.5 GHz. The observations are in agreement with numerical analyses based on the Lugiato-Lefever equation. The presented results not only facilitate novel applications and an architecture based on microresonator frequency combs, but also contribute to a further understanding of soliton physics.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043802– Published 26 January, 2026
  • Received 19 July 2025
  • Revised 14 October 2025
  • Accepted 23 December 2025
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