Dissipative soliton generation and real-time dynamics in microresonator-filtered fiber lasers

Optical frequency combs in microresonators (microcombs) have a wide range of applications in science and technology, due to its compact size and access to considerably larger comb spacing. Despite recent successes, the problems of self-starting, high mode efficiency as well as high output power have not been fully addressed for conventional soliton microcombs. Recent demonstration of laser cavity soliton microcombs by nesting a microresonator into a fiber cavity, shows great potential to solve the problems. Here we study the dissipative soliton generation and interaction dynamics in a microresonator-filtered fiber laser in both theory and experiment. We bring theoretical insight into the mode-locking principle, discuss the parameters effect on soliton properties, and provide experimental guidelines for broadband soliton generation. We predict chirped bright dissipative soliton with flat-top spectral envelope in microresonators with normal dispersion, which is fundamentally forbidden for the externally driven case. Furthermore, we experimentally achieve soliton microcombs with large bandwidth of ~10 nm and high mode efficiency of 90.7%. Finally, by taking advantage of an ultrahigh-speed time magnifier, we study the real-time soliton formation and interaction dynamics and experimentally observe soliton Newton's cradle. Our study will benefit the design of the novel, high-efficiency and self-starting microcombs for real-world applications.