Soliton pairs in a fiber laser: From anomalous to normal average dispersion regime

We report the observation of self phase-locked pulse pairs in a stretched-pulse fiber laser operating in the normal path-averaged dispersion regime. Numerical simulations agree with our experimental results. More insight is provided with a numerical comparison between intracavity profiles of pulse pairs in anomalous and in normal dispersion regimes. © 2003 Optical Society of America.