Spectro-temporal dynamics of Kerr combs with parametric seeding

We report a joint theoretical and experimental investigation of the parametric seeding of a primary Kerr optical frequency comb. Electro-optic modulation sidebands matching multiple free-spectral ranges of an ultrahigh-Q millimeter-size magnesium fluoride disk resonator are used as seed signals. These seed signals interact through four-wave mixing with the spectral components of a stable primary comb and give rise to complex spectro-temporal patterns. We show that the new frequency combs feature multiscale frequency spacing, with major frequency gaps in the order of a few hundred gigahertz, and minor frequency spacing in the order of a few tens of gigahertz. The experimental results are in agreement with numerical simulations using the Lugiato-Lefever equation. We expect such versatile and coherent optical frequency combs to have potential applications in optical communications systems where frequency management assigns predefined spectral windows at the emitter stage.