Unveiling external motion dynamics of solitons in passively mode-locked fiber lasers

Real-time measurement of ultrafast pulses together with high temporal resolution and long recording length is an urgent requirement of all optical communication systems and nonlinear science. Here, external motion dynamics of soliton pairs in mode-locking ultrafast fiber lasers can be single-shot characterized with long recording length, by using an asynchronous four-wave-mixing (FWM)-based temporal magnifier (AFTM) system. Recording length of more than one thousand roundtrips can be achieved through the AFTM system. Temporal propagation dynamics of soliton pairs with tunable separations are observed, revealing that soliton pairs with narrower separation display vibration-like dynamics, while the two solitons with wider separation remain relatively unchanged. We believe our results will provide a promising solution for real-time measurement of ultrafast pulse and can offer novel insights for ultrafast transient dynamics in nonlinear optics.