Mode-locked microcombs with flat spectral profiles provide the high signal-to-noise ratio and are in high demand for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-based applications, particularly in future high-capacity communication and parallel optical computing. Here, we present two solutions to generate local relatively flat spectral profiles. One microcavity with ultra-flat integrated dispersion is pumped to generate one relatively flat single soliton source spanning over 150 nm. Besides, one extraordinary soliton crystal with single vacancy demonstrates the local relatively flat microcomb lines when the inner soliton spacings are slightly irregular. Our work paves a new way for soliton-based applications owing to the relatively flat spectral characteristics.

基于色散傅里叶变换技术研究了反常色散腔内传统孤子和正常色散腔内耗散孤子建立时的孤子动力学过程。为探究脉冲在光放大器中如何随放大功率演变, 实验和模拟研究了这两类孤子经放大器放大后的动态变化。结果表明, 这两类孤子的光谱在建立时会经历不同的振荡过程, 传统孤子光谱会由能量有剧烈振荡的调制拍频状态过渡至稳定, 耗散孤子光谱则会由无序调制状态平稳展宽至稳定。在放大器中, 随着放大器泵浦功率的上升, 传统孤子光谱中心能量将被转移而展宽, 耗散孤子光谱则在保持谱宽不变的情况下在边沿出现尖峰。这些锁模光纤激光器和光放大器中的动态孤子非线性现象在超快激光及其放大系统中有着潜在的应用价值。

Breathing solitons, i.e., dynamic dissipative solitons with oscillating pulse shape and energy caused by different mechanisms of spatiotemporal instabilities, have received considerable interest from the aspects of nonlinear science and potential applications. However, by far, the study of breathing solitons is still limited within the time scale of hundreds of cavity round trips, which ignores the slow dynamics. To fill this lacuna, we theoretically investigate a new type of vector dissipative soliton breathing regime and experimentally demonstrate this concept using mode-locked fiber lasers, which arise from the desynchronization of orthogonal states of polarization (SOPs) in the form of complex oscillations of the phase difference between the states. The dynamic evolution of polarization states of the vector breathings solitons takes the form of a trajectory connecting two quasi-equilibrium orthogonal SOPs on the surface of the Poincaré sphere. The dwelling time near each state is on the scale of a tenth of a thousand cavity round trip times that equals the breathing period, which is up to 2 orders of magnitude longer than that for common breathers. The obtained results can reveal concepts in nonlinear science and may unlock approaches to the flexible manipulation of laser waveforms toward various applications in spectroscopy and metrology.

The nonlinear physics dynamics of temporal dissipative solitons in a microcavity hinder them from attaining high power from pump lasers with a typical nonlinear energy conversion efficiency of less than 1%. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a straightforward method for improving the output power of soliton combs using a silica microrod cavity with high coupling strength, large mode volume, and high-Q factor, resulting in a low-repetition-rate dissipative soliton (∼21GHz) with an energy conversion efficiency exceeding 20%. Furthermore, by generating an ∼105GHz5×FSR (free spectral range) soliton crystal comb in the microcavity, the energy conversion efficiency can be further increased up to 56%.

Spatiotemporal mode-locking creates great opportunity for pulse energy scaling and nonlinear optics research in fiber. Until now, spatiotemporal mode-locking has only been realized in normal-dispersion dissipative soliton and similariton fiber lasers. In this paper, we demonstrated the first experimental realization of a spatiotemporally mode-locked soliton laser in mid-infrared fluoride fiber with anomalous dispersion. The mode-locked fluoride fiber oscillator directly generated a record pulse energy of 16.1 nJ and peak power of 74.6 kW at 2.8 μm wavelength. This work extends the spatiotemporal mode-locking to soliton fiber lasers and should have a wide interest for the laser community.

Advances in the generation of the shortest optical laser pulses down to the sub-cycle regime promise to break new ground in ultrafast science. In this work, we theoretically demonstrate the potential scaling capabilities of soliton self-compression in hollow capillary fibers with a decreasing pressure gradient to generate near-infrared sub-cycle pulses in very different dispersion and nonlinearity landscapes. Independently of input pulse, gas and fiber choices, we present a simple and general route to find the optimal self-compression parameters which result in high-quality pulses. The use of a decreasing pressure gradient naturally favors the self-compression process, resulting in shorter and cleaner sub-cycle pulses, and an improvement in the robustness of the setup when compared to the traditional constant pressure approach.