Real-time observation of soliton pulsation and explosion in an Yb-doped fiber laser

Abstract Nonlinear dissipative systems support pulsating solutions and exhibit many interesting dynamic behaviors. Here, we report various soliton pulsations and explosions in an all-normal dispersion ytterbium-doped fiber laser by utilizing the dispersive Fourier transform technique. By the different soliton dynamics, these phenomena can be classified into single-soliton pulsation and explosion, dual-soliton synchronous and asynchronous pulsation, as well as dual-soliton asynchronous explosion. Solitons exhibit identical periodic fluctuations in the synchronous pulsation while showing the anti-phase behavior in asynchronous pulsation. The dual-soliton asynchronous pulsation might be related to the periodic modulation of the polarization state of solitons. As for the dual-soliton asynchronous explosion, it can be regarded as the asynchronously triggered transient solitons containing periodic explosion through the gain-mediated soliton interactions. These findings may provide new insights into complex dynamics in the field of ultrafast lasers.