Mechanism of Spectrum Moving, Narrowing, Broadening, and Wavelength Switching of Dissipative Solitons in All-Normal-Dispersion Yb-Fiber Lasers

Abstract

We report experimental observations and numerical simulation results on the spectrum moving, narrowing, broadening, and wavelength switching of dissipative solitons (DSs) in an all-normal-dispersion Yb-fiber laser that is passively mode-locked by using the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) technique. We found numerically that the DS spectrum moving, together with spectrum narrowing/broadening, is caused by the effective gain profile change resulted from the moving of the artificial spectral filter. Furthermore, we show that the wavelength switching observed in the laser is a natural consequence of the effective gain switching. The moving of the artificial spectral filter could be originated from either the cavity birefringence change or the polarizer rotation. Due to the broad gain and the artificial birefringent filter introduced by the NPR technique, apart from the central wavelength shifting and bandwidth changing, wavelength switching of DSs could be obtained by simply rotating the polarizer. Numerical simulations well reproduced the experimental observations. Our results suggest that extra effort should be made for wavelength tuning if there is any polarization-dependent component in the cavity as the wavelength switching will interrupt the continuously wavelength shift.