Pulley coupler engineering for frequency comb generation based on the supermodal approach
Abstract
Light coupling into integrated microresonators is typically achieved using straight bus couplers that are optimized to achieve critical coupling at the pump wavelength but lack spectral engineering capabilities. Pulley couplers offer additional degrees of freedom and opportunities, but optimizing their spectral response requires intensive and time-consuming numerical simulations. To address this challenge, we developed a semi-analytical approach to quickly and efficiently calculate the coupling quality factor of pulley couplers. This enables the design of either broadband or wavelength-selective pulley couplers, depending on the target application. We illustrate the dispersion engineering capabilities offered by this new approach in the context of Kerr microcombs and experimentally validate it on the SiN photonic platform. We show that it is possible to achieve a non-dispersive broadband coupler, enabling the generation of frequency combs with similar spectral characteristics (span and intensity) irrespective of the chosen pump wavelength.
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BibTeX
@article{morice2026pulley,
title = {{Pulley coupler engineering for frequency comb generation based on the supermodal approach}},
author = {Lise Morice and Baptiste Routier and Quentin Wilmart and Christian Grillet and Christelle Monat and Yoan Léger},
journal = {APL Photonics},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1063/5.0344358},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05737443v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Pulley coupler engineering for frequency comb generation based on the supermodal approach
AU - Lise Morice
AU - Baptiste Routier
AU - Quentin Wilmart
AU - Christian Grillet
AU - Christelle Monat
AU - Yoan Léger
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/02
JO - APL Photonics
DO - 10.1063/5.0344358
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05737443v1
AB - Light coupling into integrated microresonators is typically achieved using straight bus couplers that are optimized to achieve critical coupling at the pump wavelength but lack spectral engineering capabilities. Pulley couplers offer additional degrees of freedom and opportunities, but optimizing their spectral response requires intensive and time-consuming numerical simulations. To address this challenge, we developed a semi-analytical approach to quickly and efficiently calculate the coupling quality factor of pulley couplers. This enables the design of either broadband or wavelength-selective pulley couplers, depending on the target application. We illustrate the dispersion engineering capabilities offered by this new approach in the context of Kerr microcombs and experimentally validate it on the SiN photonic platform. We show that it is possible to achieve a non-dispersive broadband coupler, enabling the generation of frequency combs with similar spectral characteristics (span and intensity) irrespective of the chosen pump wavelength.
SN - 2378-0967
ER -