Generating optical pulses via a soliton state of an optical microresonator

A light pulse source (100), being adapted for generating repetitive optical pulses, comprises a continuous wave (cw) laser (10) being arranged for providing cw laser light, an optical microresonator (20) being made of a resonator material, which has a third order (Kerr) nonlinearity and an anomalous resonator dispersion, wherein the cw laser (10) is arranged for coupling the cw laser light into the optical microresonator (20), which, at a predetermined relative detuning of the cw laser (10) and the optical microresonator (20), is capable of including a light field in a soliton state, wherein soliton shaped pulses can be coupled out of the optical microresonator (20) for providing the repetitive optical pulses, and a tuning device (30) being arranged for creating and maintaining the predetermined relative detuning of the cw laser (10) and the optical microresonator (20); based on a tuning time profile being selected in dependency on a thermal time constant of the optical microresonator (20) such that the soliton state is achieved in a thermal equilibrium state of the optical microresonator (20). Furthermore, a method of generating repetitive optical pulses is described based on soliton shaped pulses coupled out of an optical microresonator (20) is described.