Coexistence of bright, dark, hybrid bright-dark cavity solitons and crystals in a single field ring resonator.

Cavity solitons in ring resonators have revolutionized frequency comb generation and its applications. Coexistence of bright and dark cavity solitons in these devices is, in general, associated with vectorial configurations with more than one optical field resonated in the cavity. We demonstrate the coexistence of stable bright, stable dark, and stable hybrid bright-dark cavity solitons in a single resonated field device formed by a three-level medium in a micro-resonator with normal dispersion. Each of these solitons displays unusually wide regions of stability and a multitude of secondary localized structures, including families of soliton crystals leading to an unprecedented variety of possible frequency combs in a single photonic device. Of the many possible soliton crystals, the most striking is a periodic sequence of dark cavity solitons found at huge distances from the stability region of the single dark soliton.