Investigation on breathing features of solitons in general dispersion-managed fiber lasers

Breathing features of solitons are investigated in fiber lasers in term of dispersion management. Traditionally, two breathing cycles exist in a dispersion-managed fiber laser with near zero dispersion, while one breathing cycle is identified either in an all-anomalous-dispersion fiber laser or in an all-normal-dispersion fiber laser. Various dispersion management maps are employed to reveal controllable transition from two breathing cycles to single breathing behavior. Specifically, it is found that the second breathing cycle could be suppressed if the cavity dispersion is shifted to either anomalous dispersion or normal dispersion, i.e., single breathing cycle can be achieved instead of classical double breathing cycles in dispersion-managed fiber lasers. Breathing features are summarized for different dispersion management maps. In addition, when considering only the pulse evolution inside the fiber segments, it was found that the number of possible breathing cycles varies significantly: dispersion-managed lasers with near-zero dispersion can allow for 2 cycles, all-anomalous-dispersion lasers for 1, and all-normal-dispersion lasers for 0.