On-demand harnessing of photonic soliton molecules

Soliton molecules (SMs) are fundamentally important modes in nonlinear optical systems. It is a challenge to experimentally produce SMs with the required temporal separation (TS) in mode-locked fiber lasers. Here, we propose and realize an experimental scenario for harnessing SM dynamics in a laser setup. In particular, we tailor SMs in a mode-locked laser controlled by second-order group-velocity dispersion and dispersion losses: the real part of dispersion maintains the balance between the dispersion and nonlinearity, while the dispersion loss determines the balance of gain and losses. The experimental results demonstrate that the dispersion loss makes it possible to select desired values of the TS in bound pairs of SMs in the system. Tunability of a SM’s central wavelength and the corresponding hysteresis are addressed too. The demonstrated regime allows us to create multiple SMs with preselected values of the TS and central wavelength, which shows the potential of our setup for the design of optical data-processing schemes.