Ultrafast fiber laser based on Eu(FTA)3(TPPO)2 for the generations and dynamics of vector solitons

• The organometallic complex Eu(FTA) 3 (TPPO) 2 is synthesized and its unique nonlinear optical properties are found. • Q-switched pulse, conventional solitons and bound-state solitons are implemented in the fiber laser with Eu(FTA) 3 (TPPO) 2 saturable absorber. • The real-time dynamic evolution process of the formation of vector solitons in fiber laser is clearly displayed by numerical simulation. Organometallic complexes have attracted much attention due to their exciting properties such as rich variability, easy functionalization, abundant photon transition absorption bands and high optical nonlinearity. In this paper, a spherical organometallic complex Eu(FTA) 3 (TPPO) 2 is successfully synthesized and used to fabricate a saturable absorber (SA) with the modulation depth of 15 %. The ultrashort vector conventional solitons (VCSs) with pulse width of 320 fs and maximum output power of 17.6 mW are obtained at a low starting threshold of 40 mW. The mode-locked pulse has a high light-to-light conversion efficiency of 22.6 %. In addition, the vector bound-state solitons (VBSs) with a pulse interval of 1.65 ps is observed. The numerical simulation results reproduce the experimental results well, the generation and rich dynamic behavior of vector solitons (VSs) based on cross phase modulation and intensity modulation are further discussed. To our knowledge, this work initiates the Eu(FTA) 3 (TPPO) 2 as an excellent SA in ultrafast fiber lasers and expands the application of organometallic complexes materials. Furthermore, the numerical simulation results have important reference value for the study of VSs dynamics.