Optical lattice trap for Kerr solitons

We show theoretically and numerically that dichromatic pumping of a nonlinear microresonator by two continuous wave coherent optical pumps creates an optical lattice trap that results in the localization of intra-cavity Kerr solitons with soliton positions defined by the beat frequency of the two pumps. This phenomenon corresponds to the stabilization of the comb repetition rate. The locking of the second pump, through adiabatic tuning of its frequency, to the comb generated by the first pump allows transitioning to single-soliton states, manipulating the position of Kerr solitons in the cavity, and tuning the frequency comb repetition rate within the locking range. It also explains soliton crystal formation in resonators supporting a dispersive wave emitted as a result of higher-order group velocity dispersion or avoided mode crossing. We show that dichromatic pumping by externally stabilized pumps can be utilized for stabilization of microresonator-based optical frequency combs when the comb span does not cover an octave or a significant fraction thereof and standard self-referencing techniques cannot be employed. Our findings have significant ramifications for high-precision applications of optical frequency combs in spectrally pure signal generation, metrology, and timekeeping. Graphical abstract