Coherent energy exchange between vector soliton components in fiber lasers

TL;DR

This paper presents experimental and numerical evidence of four wave mixing between polarization components of vector solitons in fiber lasers, revealing energy exchange mechanisms and spectral features.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental observation of polarization component energy exchange via FWM in fiber laser solitons, supported by numerical simulations.

Findings

Observation of out-of-phase spectral sidebands due to FWM

Identification of energy exchange between polarization components

Numerical confirmation of experimental results

Abstract

We report on the experimental evidence of four wave mixing (FWM) between the two polarization components of a vector soliton formed in a passively mode-locked fiber laser. Extra spectral sidebands with out-of-phase intensity variation between the polarization resolved soliton spectra was firstly observed, which was identified to be caused by the energy exchange between the two soliton polarization components. Other features of the FWM spectral sidebands and the soliton internal FWM were also experimentally investigated and numerically confirmed.