Self-similar pulse evolution in a fiber laser with a comb-like dispersion-decreasing fiber

We demonstrate an erbium fiber laser with self-similar pulse evolution inside a comb-like dispersion-decreasing fiber. We show numerically and experimentally that the comb-like dispersion-decreasing fiber works as well as an ideal one, and offers major practical advantages. The existence of a nonlinear attractor is verified by the invariant pulse chirp over a wide range of net cavity dispersion in experiments. The laser generates 1.3 nJ pulses with parabolic shapes and linear chirps, which can be dechirped to 37 fs. Comb-like dispersion-decreasing fiber should enable the generation of high-energy few-cycle pulses directly from a fiber oscillator.