Abstract
We report the first experimental observation, to the best of our knowledge, of soliton molecules in a robust all polarization-maintaining (PM) mode-locked fiber laser with a nonreciprocal phase bias that results in a low self-starting threshold and stable mode locking. Through elaborately tuning the waveplate in the cavity, calibrating the laser pulse from conventional soliton to soliton molecules is implemented, and versatile soliton molecules including harmonic soliton pairs, tightly or loosely bound soliton quartets, multipulse bound solitons are achieved and manipulated at different pump powers. Theoretical investigations are established to elucidate the soliton molecules spectral characteristics with various phase differences and time separations in the cavity that elicit good concurrence with achieved experimental results. The achieved results both rich the nonlinear dynamics in fiber lasers and pave the potential applications for this excellent architecture fiber laser.
Highlights
As a hot research focus, soliton molecules (SMs) have attracted great interest over the past few years, that illuminate to comprehend the interaction mechanism among the soliton pulses in the cavity, and have potential applications in the fields of optical information storage [1], optical telecommunication systems with high capacity [2], and optical signal processing [3]
We report the first experimental observation, to the best of our knowledge, of soliton molecules in a robust all polarization-maintaining (PM) mode-locked fiber laser with a nonreciprocal phase bias that results in a low self-starting threshold and stable mode locking
The aforementioned soliton interactions can coexist in the cavity, numerous interesting SMs mayhap formed by complex soliton-soliton interactions in fiber lasers
Summary
As a hot research focus, soliton molecules (SMs) have attracted great interest over the past few years, that illuminate to comprehend the interaction mechanism among the soliton pulses in the cavity, and have potential applications in the fields of optical information storage [1], optical telecommunication systems with high capacity [2], and optical signal processing [3]. Thanks to the first theoretical prediction of SMs by the models of the coupled Ginzburg-Landau equation and nonlinear Schrödinger equation in fiber lasers [4]. According to the operation conditions, the soliton interactions in SMs formation mayhap categorized into three types [11]: direct, localized, and global soliton-soliton interactions. Three different perturbations of third-order dispersion (dispersive wave generation), the periodic nature of the cavity (Kelly sidebands), and the random birefringence of the resonator were experimentally evidenced during the bound state formation in a ring fiber laser [9]. The aforementioned soliton interactions can coexist in the cavity, numerous interesting SMs mayhap formed by complex soliton-soliton interactions in fiber lasers
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