Experimental study of pulse recovery from dropout in an actively mode-locked fiber laser

The authors study experimentally the recovery of an actively harmonically mode-locked fiber laser from pulse dropout. Four pulses out of a pulse train of 640 pulses were dropped. The recovery of the pulses that were dropped was studied over a time period of up to 32 ms with a time resolution on the order of a few picoseconds. The authors show that in the optimal operating region, pulses that are dropped can quickly regenerate. However, when the laser power is insufficient, the probability of a pulse that was dropped to recover is small. When the laser power is high enough, the authors experimentally observed the generation of a pulse pair in a single time slot. The experimental results are in a good quantitative agreement with a comprehensive numerical simulation of the laser.