Vector Soliton Fiber Lasers

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development and experimental evidence of vector solitons in fiber lasers, highlighting recent advances in understanding their formation and properties in nonlinear optical systems.

Contribution

It provides new theoretical and experimental insights into the formation of various types of vector solitons in mode-locked fiber lasers.

Findings

Experimental observation of vector solitons in fiber lasers

Theoretical prediction of different vector soliton types

Enhanced understanding of soliton dynamics in nonlinear media

Abstract

Solitons, as stable localized wave packets that can propagate long distance in dispersive media without changing their shapes, are ubiquitous in nonlinear physical systems. Since the first experimental realization of optical bright solitons in the anomalous dispersion single mode fibers (SMF) by Mollenauer et al. in 1980 and optical dark solitons in the normal dispersion SMFs by P. Emplit et al. in 1987, optical solitons in SMFs had been extensively investigated. In reality a SMF always supports two orthogonal polarization modes. Taking fiber birefringence into account, it was later theoretically predicted that various types of vector solitons, including the bright-bright vector solitons, dark-dark vector solitons and dark-bright vector solitons, could be formed in SMFs. However, except the bright-bright type of vector solitons, other types of vector solitons are so far lack of clear experimental evidence. Optical solitons have been observed not only in the SMFs but also in mode locked fiber lasers. It has been shown that the passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber lasers offer a promising experimental platform for studying the scalar optical solitons. Vector solitons can also be formed in mode locked fiber lasers. In this dissertation, the author presents results of a series of theoretical and experimental investigations on the vector solitons in fiber lasers.