Programmable deterministic generation method of soliton microcomb

Soliton microcombs provide discrete pulses and equally spaced frequency rulers, playing a key role in information science and precision measurement applications. Recently, the use of Kerr soliton frequency combs has been shown to significantly improve the sensing accuracy and range of distributed sensing systems while effectively reducing coherent fading, demonstrating great potential in the field of distributed fiber optic sensing. However, the certainty and long-term stability of soliton generation limit the application of soliton microcombs. In this work, we propose a programmable generation scheme for single solitons. The method utilizes soliton step feature recognition technique and thermal assisted optical tuning and feedback method. Through real-time monitoring of the pump and auxiliary optical power, the two-stage scanning method is adopted to automatically identify and obtain the power feature points of the single soliton state, so as to achieve accurate monitoring and control of the soliton state in the cavity and determine the generation of a single soliton with 100% probability. This scheme provides an innovative light source solution for the next generation of distributed fiber sensing systems.