Deterministic generation of single dissipative Kerr solitons in a microresonator by continuous-wave triggering

• A repeatable and systematic method for achieving deterministic CW-triggered operation of single soliton microcombs is presented. • No active scanning of either the pump wavelength or the cavity resonant frequency is required, facilitating turnkey operation • The single soliton state can be achieved by CW triggering at milliwatt level. • The ideas have opened up new horizons for improving and obtaining low-threshold on-chip soliton techniques. We propose a continuous wave (CW) triggering method for simple deterministic generation of Kerr solitons by seeding a fixed-frequency pump driven nonlinear microresonator. Single soliton frequency combs can be generated deterministically simply by adjusting the intensity and frequency offset of the trigger signal. Using numerical simulations, we have systematically investigated the dynamics and mechanism for the generation of stable Kerr solitons. We found that single soliton state can be achieved by CW triggering at milliwatt level. We also present the principle of temporal soliton generation and determine the parameter regime for stable single solitons generated by the external trigger. This work provides a new method for generating Kerr solitons in microresonators with low-threshold high repetition rate comb sources.