Generation of Kerr soliton microcomb in a normally dispersed lithium niobate microdisk resonator by mode trimming

Anomalous microresonator dispersion is mandatory for Kerr soliton microcomb formation, which depends critically on the geometry of the microresonator and can hardly be tuned after the structure is made. To date, cavity-based microcombs have only been generated with fundamental whispering gallery modes (WGMs) of anomalous dispersion in microresonators. Moreover, microcomb generation in highly Raman-active platforms such as lithium niobate (LN) microresonators frequently suffers from stimulated Raman scattering and mode crossing due to the existence of multiple families of high-order WGMs. Here, we reveal a unique Kerr soliton microcomb generation mechanism through mode trimming in a weakly perturbed LN microdisk resonator. Remarkably, the soliton comb is generated with fundamental WGMs of normal dispersion and free from the mode crossing and Raman scattering effects. A robust soliton with a spectrum spanning from 1450 nm to 1620 nm at an on-chip pump power of 35 mW. Our discovery offers a powerful solution to circumvent the stringent requirements on high-precision dispersion engineering and termination of Raman excitation for soliton generation in the high-Q microdisk.