2014/01/13 by Yiqing Xu, Stéphane Coen, Stephane Coen
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #Bistability #Instability #Kerr effect #Laser #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Nonlinear optics #Nonlinear system #Optical bistability #Optics #Physics #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Resonator #Spontaneous symmetry breaking #Symmetry (geometry) #Symmetry breaking #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1364/ol.39.003492
published as Optics Letters 39 (2014) 3492-3495 · 5 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2014/01/13 · openalex publication_date 2014/06/04 · arxiv updated 2014/06/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We experimentally observe a spontaneous temporal symmetry breaking instability in a coherently driven passive optical Kerr resonator. Using a time-symmetric configuration, we report output pulses with strongly asymmetric temporal and spectral intensity profiles, with up to 71% of the energy on the same side of the pump center frequency. The instability occurs above a certain pump power threshold but remarkably vanishes above a second threshold, in excellent agreement with theory. We also observe a generalized bistability in which an asymmetric output state coexists with a symmetric one in the same pumping conditions.