Electrically-Driven Platform for Soliton Generation

Optical frequency combs (OFCs) stand as the cornerstone of modern optics, with applications ranging from fundamental science to sensing and spectroscopy. Generation of short optical soliton pulses in passive media such as optical fibers and microresonators has been an established technique for stable OFC formation with a broad optical spectrum - however these platforms are driven by an external optical signal and often rely on additional bulky elements that increase the complexity of the system. Here, we aim to overcome these difficulties by extending the soliton concept to active media that are electrically-driven and demonstrate a new type of solitons in a free-running semiconductor laser integrated on a chip.