Synchronization of Breathing-Soliton and Dispersive Wave in Mode-Locked Fiber Lasers

Breathing soliton is an attractive non-stationary dynamic in ultrafast fiber lasers, which is one of the hotspots in nonlinear science. Here, using the dispersive Fourier transform technique, we revealed the coexistence of breathing solitons and dispersive waves (DWs) in a mode-locked fiber laser. We found that breathing solitons and DWs interact with each other and synchronous energy coupling is achieved under appropriate gain. This synchronization is a form to stabilize the breathing state due to the balance between the circulating gain of the intracavity pulse and the DW energy dissipation. The stabilized coupling region is disrupted by the gain-competing effect of strongly radiating DW at high pumping. These results help to understand the mechanism of breathing soliton generation and contribute to the optimized design of ultrafast fiber lasers.