Numerical and experimental investigation of dissipative solitons in passively mode-locked fiber lasers with large net-normal-dispersion and high nonlinearity

Dissipative soliton evolution in passively mode-locked fiber lasers with large net-normal-dispersion and high nonlinearity is investigated numerically and confirmed experimentally. I have proposed a theoretical model including the nonlinear polarization evolution and spectral filtering effect. This model successfully predicts the pulse behaviors of the proposed laser, such as the multi-soliton evolution, quasi-rectangle-spectrum profile, trapezoid-spectrum profile, and unstable state. Numerical results show that, in contrast to the typical net-or all-normal-dispersion fiber lasers with the slight variation of the pulse breathing, the breathing ratios of the pulse duration and spectral width of our laser are more than three and two during the intra-cavity propagation, respectively. The nonlinear polarization rotation mechanism together with spectral filtering effect plays the key roles on the pulse evolution. The experimental observations confirm the theoretical predictions. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America