Kerr-induced synchronization of a cavity soliton to an optical reference
The phase-coherent frequency division of a stabilized optical reference laser to the microwave domain is made possible by optical-frequency combs (OFCs)1,2. OFC-based clockworks3–6 lock one comb tooth to a reference laser, which probes a stable atomic transition, usually through an active servo that increases the complexity of the OFC photonic and electronic integration for fieldable clock applications. Here, we demonstrate that the Kerr nonlinearity enables passive, electronics-free synchronization of a microresonator-based dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) OFC7 to an externally injected r...