Generation and dynamics of soliton and soliton molecules from a VSe₂/GO-based fiber laser

Recently, in addition to exploring the application of new saturable absorber devices in fiber lasers, soliton dynamics has also become a focus of current research. In this article, we report an ultrashort pulse fiber laser based on VSe₂/GO nanocomposite and verify the formation process of soliton and soliton molecules by the numerical simulation. The prepared VSe₂/GO-based device shows excellent saturable absorption characteristics with a modulation depth of 14.3% and a saturation absorption intensity of 0.93 MW/cm². The conventional soliton is obtained with pulse width of 573 fs, which is currently the narrowest pulse width based on VSe₂-related material, and has a signal-to-noise ratio of 60.4 dB. In addition, the soliton molecules are realized based on the VSe₂/GO for the first time and have a pulse interval of ∼2.2 ps. We study the soliton dynamics through numerical simulation and reveal that before the formation of the soliton, it undergoes multiple nonlinear stages, such as soliton mode-locking, soliton splitting, and soliton oscillation. Furthermore, the results of numerical simulation are agreed well with the experimental data. These results indicate that the VSe₂/GO might be another promising saturable absorber material for ultrafast photonics, and deepen the understanding of soliton dynamics in ultrafast fiber lasers.