Search results for "Optical solitons"

Dissipative solitons for mode-locked lasers

2012

International audience; Dissipative solitons are localized formations of an electromagnetic field that are balanced through an energy exchange with the environment in presence of nonlinearity, dispersion and/or diffraction. Their growing use in the area of passively mode-locked lasers is remarkable: the concept of a dissipative soliton provides an excellent framework for understanding complex pulse dynamics and stimulates innovative cavity designs. Reciprocally, the field of mode-locked lasers serves as an ideal playground for testing the concept of dissipative solitons and revealing their unusual dynamics. This Review provides basic definitions of dissipative solitons, summarizes their imp…