Dissipative soliton comb

Abstract

Dissipative solitons are stable localized coherent structures with linear frequency chirp generated in normal-dispersion mode-locked lasers. The soliton energy in fiber lasers is limited by the Raman effect, but implementation of intracavity feedback for the Stokes wave enables synchronous generation of a coherent Raman dissipative soliton. Here we demonstrate a new approach for generating chirped pulses at new wavelengths by mixing in a highly-nonlinear fiber of two frequency-shifted dissipative solitons, as well as cascaded generation of their clones forming a "dissipative soliton comb" in the frequency domain. We observed up to eight equidistant components in a 400-nm interval demonstrating compressibility from ~10 ps to ~300 fs. This approach, being different from traditional frequency combs, can inspire new developments in fundamental science and applications.