title: Switchable thulium-doped fiber laser from polarization rotation vector to scalar soliton.
abstract: We experimentally demonstrate switchable temporal soliton generation from a thulium-doped fiber laser (TDFL), using carbon nanotubes as the mode-locker. With the help of residual polarization dependent loss of a wavelength division multiplexer, a weak nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) effect can be achieved within the laser cavity, which may provide joint contribution for passive mode-locking operation. By finely adjusting the polarization to alter the strength of NPR-based saturable absorption, the TDFL either approaches the operation regime of scalar soliton with strong NPR effect, or generates polarization rotation locked vector soliton (PRLVS) with weak NPR effect. The scalar solitons and PRLVSs possess 3-dB optical spectrum bandwidth of 2.2 nm and 2 nm, pulse-width of 1.8 ps and 2 ps, respectively. Moreover, the PRLVSs demonstrate a typical energy exchange between two polarized components on optical spectra and a period-doubling feature in time domain. Such operation principle can also be used in 1550 nm band fiber lasers and other nonlinear systems.
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Zhichao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.|National Engineering Laboratory of Next Generation Internet Access System, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Songnian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Centre for Optical Fibre Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637553, Singapore.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory of Next Generation Internet Access System, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Jue
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Centre for Optical Fibre Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637553, Singapore.
authors.forename: Huizi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.|National Engineering Laboratory of Next Generation Internet Access System, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Centre for Optical Fibre Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637553, Singapore.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shum
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory of Next Generation Internet Access System, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Deming
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu