Dissipative solitons are remarkable localized states of a physical system
that arise from the dynamical balance between nonlinearity, dispersion and
environmental energy exchange. They are the most universal form of soliton that
can exist in nature, and are seen in far-from-equilibrium systems in many
fields including chemistry, biology, and physics. There has been particular
interest in studying their properties in mode-locked lasers producing
ultrashort light pulses, but experiments have been limited by the lack of
convenient measurement techniques able to track the soliton evolution in
real-time. Here, we use dispersive Fourier transform and time lens measurements
to simultaneously measure real-time spectral and temporal evolution of
dissipative solitons in a fiber laser as the turn-on dynamics pass through a
transient unstable regime with complex break-up and collision dynamics before
stabilizing to a regular mode-locked pulse train. Our measurements enable
reconstruction of the soliton amplitude and phase and calculation of the
corresponding complex-valued eigenvalue spectrum to provide further physical
insight. These findings are significant in showing how real-time measurements
can provide new perspectives into the ultrafast transient dynamics of complex
systems.Comment: See also M. Narhi, P. Ryczkowski, C. Billet, G. Genty, J. M. Dudley,
Ultrafast Simultaneous Real Time Spectral and Temporal Measurements of Fibre
Laser Modelocking Dynamics, 2017 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics
Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference, paper EE-3.5 (2017