title: Microresonator defects as sources of drifting cavity solitons.
abstract: Cavity solitons (CS) are localized structures appearing as single intensity peaks in the homogeneous background of the field emitted by a nonlinear (micro)resonator. In real devices, their position is strongly influenced by the presence of defects in the device structure. In this Letter we show that the interplay between these defects and a phase gradient in the driving field induces the spontaneous formation of a regular sequence of CSs moving in the gradient direction. Hence, defects behave as a device built-in CS source, where the CS generation rate can be set by controlling the system parameters.
authors.affiliation: Institut Non-linéaire de Nice, UMR 6618 Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Caboche
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pedaci
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Genevet
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barland
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Giudici
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tredicce
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tissoni
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Lugiato