Solitons are revealed to undergo sudden structural collapse upon nonlinear propagation and robust recurrence to the original state afterwards. Such fascinating dynamics, termed soliton explosions, are ubiquitous in dissipative systems, but, surprisingly, are, so far, found exclusively in parameter-invariant stationary solitons. Many nonlinear systems support dynamic solutions, such as breathing dissipative solitons (DSs), the energy and duration of which experience periodic evolutions. It is of fundamental importance to unveil whether breathing DSs also exhibit explosive dynamics. Here, we report on experimental observation of breathing DS explosions in mode-locked fiber lasers. A bifurcation diagram clearly shows how different laser regimes, including breathing DS explosions, breathing DSs, and continuous-wave mode locking, are switched by varying the pump power. While soliton explosions are found above the pump power for generating stable solitons, breathing DS explosions occur under the pump power to support stable breathing DSs. Nonlinearity-mediated giant Q-switching is critical to stimulate breathing DS explosions. Moreover, rogue waves are observed during breathing DS explosions. A correlation analysis shows that the spectral correlation evolves during breathing DS explosions from a low value at the explosion phase to a high one at the revival phase. Our results can contribute to the design of ultrafast lasers and are conducive to understanding the complex dynamics of nonlinear systems.

• Received 18 December 2018
• Revised 18 June 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.12.034052