Dissipative structures in topological lattices of nonlinear optical resonators (2104.11731v3)

Abstract: We theoretically study the dynamics and spatio-temporal pattern formation of driven lattices of nonlinear optical microresonators and analyze the formation of dissipative structures, in particular dissipative Kerr solitons. We consider both equally coupled one-dimensional chains, as well as the topological Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. We show the complexity of the four-wave mixing pathways arising in these systems with the increasing dimensionality due to the combined spatial and synthetic frequency dimension of each resonator, and show that it can be modeled using a two-dimensional variant of the Lugiato-Lefever equation. We demonstrate the existence of two fundamentally different dynamical regimes in one-dimensional chains - elliptic and hyperbolic - inherent to the system. In the elliptic regime, we generate hexagonal patterns and a two-dimensional dissipative Kerr soliton corresponding to the global spatio-temporal mode-locking and discuss its similarity to edge-state solitons in the two-dimensional Haldane topological lattice. We find that the presence of the second dimension leads to the observation of regularized wave collapse. Furthermore, we study similarities and differences between a one-dimensional topological lattice and a single cavity and analyze nonlinearly induced edge-to-bulk scattering in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. Moreover, we show that soliton formation can both be impaired in trivial but, importantly, also topologically protected bands due to nonlinear bulk edge scattering.