Nonlinearity engineering of mode-locked fiber lasers: Similariton and soliton-similariton lasers

Fiber lasers are attractive with their simplicity, high powers and low cost. However, propagation of short pulses in optical fiber leads to nonlinear effects, which limit the technical performance. These effects drive rich dynamics, which is interesting from a fundamental perspective. The nonlinear waves community has unraveled the fascinating world of solitons and similaritons through experiments in fibers. This paper overviews the recent development of the soliton-similariton laser. The original similariton laser was the first to work with nonlinear effects, rather than minimizing or compensating them. In the soliton-similariton laser, the propagation is strongly nonlinear everywhere. © 2011 IEEE.