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Abstract Optical frequency combs in microresonators (microcombs) have a wide range of applications in science and technology, due to its compact size and access to considerably larger comb spacing. Despite recent successes, the problems of self-starting, high mode efficiency as well as high output power have not been fully addressed for conventional soliton microcombs. Recent demonstration of laser cavity soliton microcombs by nesting a microresonator into a fiber cavity, shows great potential to solve the problems. Here we study the dissipative soliton generation and interaction dynamics in a microresonator-filtered fiber laser in both theory and experiment. We bring theoretical insight into the mode-locking principle, discuss the parameters effect on soliton properties, and provide experimental guidelines for broadband soliton generation. We predict chirped bright dissipative soliton with flat-top spectral envelope in microresonators with normal dispersion, which is fundamentally forbidden for the externally driven case. Furthermore, we experimentally achieve soliton microcombs with large bandwidth of ~10 nm and high mode efficiency of 90.7%. Finally, by taking advantage of an ultrahigh-speed time magnifier, we study the real-time soliton formation and interaction dynamics and experimentally observe soliton Newton’s cradle. Our study will benefit the design of the novel, high-efficiency and self-starting microcombs for real-world applications.
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Complex Swift Hohenberg equation dissipative soliton fiber laser
Complex Swift Hohenberg equation (CSHE) has attracted intensive research interest over the years, as it enables realistic modeling of mode-locked lasers with saturable absorbers by adding a fourth-order term to the spectral response. Many researchers have reported a variety of numerical solutions of CSHE which reveal interesting pulse patterns and structures. In this work, we have demonstrated a CSHE dissipative soliton fiber laser experimentally using a unique spectral filter with a complicated transmission profile. The behavior and performance of the laser agree qualitatively with the numerical simulations based on CSHE. Our findings bring insight into dissipative soliton dynamics and make our mode-locked laser a powerful testbed for observing dissipative solitons of CSHE, which may open a new course in ultrafast fiber laser research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1710914
- PAR ID:
- 10231121
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Photonics Research
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2327-9125
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article No. 1033
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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