Programmable frequency combs with laser cavity solitons

We numerically study programmable laser cavity soliton generation within a nested cavities architecture. The nested architecture includes a fibered Fabry-Pérot resonator as well as a photonic device used as programmable delay-line, which allows for controlling the laser repetition rate over a frequency range covering the GHz-THz interval. In the proposed approach, the pulse repetition rate is adjusted based on a temporal interleaving process, obtained after propagation through the programmable delay-line structure. Our numerical study demonstrates how a programmable delay-line can be leveraged to obtain a highly-tunable passively mode-locked laser via harmonic mode-locking, featuring the formation of energy efficient yet reconfigurable laser cavity soliton pulses. In particular, basic rules are outlined to facilitate the experimental implementation of such a mode-locked laser. The proposed laser architecture is expected to thus provide enhanced versatility for compact and tunable frequency comb generation.