Microcomb generation with simultaneous χ(2) and χ(3) nonlinearities brings new possibilities for ultrabroadband and potentially self-referenced integrated comb sources. However, the evolution of the intracavity field involving multiple nonlinear processes shows complex dynamics that are still poorly understood. Here, we report on strong soliton regulation induced by fundamental–second-harmonic (FD-SH) mode coupling. The formation of solitons from chaos is extensively investigated based on coupled Lugiato–Lefever equations. The soliton generation shows more deterministic behaviors in the presence of FD-SH mode interaction, which is in sharp contrast with the usual cases where the soliton number and relative locations are stochastic. Deterministic single soliton transition, soliton binding, and prohibition are observed, depending on the phase-matching condition and coupling coefficient between the fundamental and second-harmonic waves. Our finding provides important new insights into the soliton dynamics in microcavities with simultaneous χ(2) and χ(3) nonlinearities and can be immediate guidance for broadband soliton comb generation with such platforms.

We present the investigation on deformation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes in bending ring-core fibers (RCFs) with different structure sizes through numerical and experimental studies. The effective refractive index differences of even and odd fiber eigenmodes, which constitute OAM±1,1 modes, induced by RCF bending and their impacts on the OAM±1,1 mode intensity distributions are analyzed. Bending experiments are also carried out on three different RCFs, and the results match well with simulation values. It is found that RCFs with smaller inner and outer radii show preferable tolerance to the fiber bending.

A highly linear W-band receiver front-end based on higher-order optical sideband (OSB) processing is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Two-tone analysis shows that by manipulating higher-order OSBs, the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) introduced by optoelectronic components (mainly modulators) in the receiver front-end can be further suppressed, and a 9 dB improvement of the ratio of the fundamental and IMD3 can be attained. In the experiment, the spurious-free dynamic range of the W-band receiver front-end is up to 122.1 dB·Hz2/3, with improvement by 9 dB compared with that of only processing the five OSBs.

We present a polarization-maintaining PANDA ring-core fiber (PM-PRCF) characterized by the combination of a ring-core structure with two stress-applying rods. This special fiber design separates the adjacent modes and avoids the cutoff of the higher-order modes, which is a common problem in elliptical core polarization-maintaining few-mode fibers. Using a high-contrast index ring and stress-induced birefringence, the PM-PRCF features support for 10 vector modes, with effective refractive index separations from their adjacent modes >10?4. Broadband performance is investigated subsequently over a wide wavelength range from 1500 to 1630 nm. The proposed fiber is targeted at applications in space-division multiplexing while eliminating the complex multiple-input multiple-output signal processing.

A finite impulse-response microwave photonic filter is typically achieved based on spectrum-shaped optical frequency combs and a dispersive element. We propose an analytical model to describe the amplitude responses of the sidelobes. The model shows that the sidelobe suppression ratio is limited by the spectrum structure of the optical combs. By taking Gaussian-profiled combs as an example, it is both theoretically and experimentally proved that the suppression ratio can be improved by optimizing the spectral power range, which is defined as the ratio of the maximum tap weight to the minimum tap weight.