Addressing Thermal Instability in Accessing Dissipative Kerr Solitons in AlGaAs-on-Insulator Microresonators

Dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) microcombs, known for generating broadband and highly coherent frequency combs in miniature and scalable integrated platforms, have revolutionized various fields. Among integrated nonlinear material platforms, AlGaAs-on-Insulator (AlGaAsOI) stands out due to its ultra-high nonlinearity, enabling efficient frequency comb generation [1]. Accessing the DKS in the red-detuned regime is challenging because of significant thermo-optic instability while tuning the pump across the resonance. AlGaAs exhibits significant thermo-optic coefficient, complicating the soliton formation in AlGaAsOI platform [2]. Although approaches such as cryogenic cooling, high-dispersion design, and dual-pump schemes [3] have been proposed to mitigate thermal instability, they introduce additional complexity or impose limitations on DKS operation.