Observation of Soliton Explosions in an Anomalous-Dispersion Fibre Laser

Abstract

As one of the most intriguing nonlinear dissipative phenomena, soliton explosions can be characterized by the collapse abruptly of quasi-stable spectrum and then the spectrum restore to the initial state within certain roundtrips [1]. Despite the first experimental observation on soliton explosions was reported in a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser as early as 2002 [2], most related investigations in the past decades have focused on theoretical analysis and numerical simulations due to the lack of real-time high-resolution measurements. Recently, the dispersive Fourier transformation (DFT) method, making the temporal waveform of a pulse mimic its corresponding spectrum, was proposed to achieve real-time spectral measurements and apply to the investigation of the real-time spectral evolution of soliton explosions in a fiber laser [3]. Subsequently, several soliton explosions with different characterizations in fiber lasers have been reported, including successive soliton explosions [4], spectral periodicity in soliton explosions [5], mutually ignited soliton explosions [6]. However, the soliton explosions in fiber lasers described above were confined in the normal or net-normal dispersion regimes. Condeising the different soliton shaping mechanisms, the anomalous-dispersion fiber lasers are more likely to suffer the multi-pulse instabilities than those of normal dispersion ones. Morover, the theoretical results also demonstrated that the soliton explosions could appear in the anomalous dispersion regime [1]. Therefore, it is necessary to study the soliton explosions in anomalous dispersion regime experimentally for comprehensively understanding the soliton explosion dynamics, and we expect to find some different features compared to the soliton explosions in normal dispersion regime.