Coexistence of strong and weak pulses in a fiber laser with largely anomalous dispersion

The coexistence of weakly sech-shaped solitons and strongly dissipative solitons is experimentally observed in an ultra-large net-anomalous-dispersion mode-locked fiber laser for the first time to author's best knowledge. Both sech-shaped and dissipative solitons appear to be the asymmetrically combined pulse state with one pulse component much smaller than the other. The energy of dissipative solitons is over three orders of magnitude larger than that of sech-shaped solitons. Two different types of pulse-shaping mechanisms coexist in the laser: one is the dissipative processes and the other is the balance between anomalous dispersion and nonlinear Kerr effect. Numerical simulations and analysis confirm the experimental observations.