• Advanced Photonics Nexus
  • Vol. 4, Issue 1, 016012 (2025)
Yi Zhou1,*, Kangwen Yang1,2,3, Kevin K. Tsia1,2, Heping Zeng4, and Kenneth K. Y. Wong1,2,*
Author Affiliations
  • 1The University of Hong Kong, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Hong Kong, China
  • 2Advanced Biomedical Instrumentation Centre, New Territories, Hong Kong, China
  • 3University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Optical Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System, and Engineering Research Center of Optical Instrument and System, Shanghai, China
  • 4East China Normal University, State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Shanghai, China
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    DOI: 10.1117/1.APN.4.1.016012 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Yi Zhou, Kangwen Yang, Kevin K. Tsia, Heping Zeng, Kenneth K. Y. Wong, "Intelligent soliton molecules control in an ultrafast thulium fiber laser," Adv. Photon. Nexus 4, 016012 (2025) Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Soliton molecules (SMs), bounded and self-assembled of particle-like dissipative solitons, exist with versatile mutual interactions and manifest substantial potential in soliton communication and optical data storage. However, controllable manipulation of the bounded molecular patterns remains challenging, as reaching a specific operation regime in lasers generally involves adjusting multiple control parameters in connection with a wide range of accessible pulse dynamics. An evolutionary algorithm is implemented for intelligent control of SMs in a 2 μm ultrafast fiber laser mode locked through nonlinear polarization rotation. Depending on the specifications of the merit function used for the optimization procedure, various SM operations are obtained, including spectra shape programming and controllable deterministic switching of doublet and triplet SMs operating in stationary or pulsation states with reconfigurable temporal separations, frequency locking of pulsation SMs, doublet and SM complexes with controllable pulsation ratio, etc. Digital encoding is further demonstrated in this platform by employing the self-assembled characteristics of SMs. Our work opens up an avenue for active SM control beyond conventional telecom bands and brings useful insights into nonlinear science and applications.
    Supplementary Materials
    Yi Zhou, Kangwen Yang, Kevin K. Tsia, Heping Zeng, Kenneth K. Y. Wong, "Intelligent soliton molecules control in an ultrafast thulium fiber laser," Adv. Photon. Nexus 4, 016012 (2025)
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