As a type of nonlinear system with complexity, mode-locked fiber lasers are known for their complex behaviour. It is a challenging task to understand the fundamental physics behind such complex behaviour, and a unified description for the nonlinear behaviour and the systematic and quantitative analysis of the underlying mechanisms of these lasers have not been developed. Here, we present a complexity science-based theoretical framework for understanding the behaviour of mode-locked fiber lasers by going beyond reductionism. This hierarchically structured framework provides a model with variable dimensionality, resulting in a simple view that can be used to systematically describe complex states. Moreover, research into the attractors' basins reveals the origin of stochasticity, hysteresis and multistability in these systems and presents a new method for quantitative analysis of these nonlinear phenomena. These findings pave the way for dynamics analysis and system designs of mode-locked fiber lasers. We expect that this paradigm will also enable potential applications in diverse research fields related to complex nonlinear phenomena.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/624054 |
| Date | 02 May 2017 |
| Creators | Wei, Huai, Li, Bin, Shi, Wei, Zhu, Xiushan, Norwood, Robert A., Peyghambarian, Nasser, Jian, Shuisheng |
| Contributors | Univ Arizona, Coll Opt Sci |
| Publisher | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | © The Author(s) 2017. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
| Relation | http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01334-x |
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