Emergence of Laser Cavity-Solitons in a Microresonator-Filtered Fiber Laser

In an open nonlinear system, emergent complex structures are generally determined by a set of global parameters. Cavity-solitons are an example of such structures and, in their temporal form, have seeded the last decade of major developments in microresonator-based optical frequency combs. These optical pulses typically require complex procedures and external feedback to be induced and maintained. Recent progress has seen the microresonators directly embedded into a laser cavity [1] , [2] where it is possible to simply initiate cavity-soliton formation by increasing the laser-diode driving current [3]. Hybrid laser-microresonator schemes have been considered since 2012 [4] , and extremely efficient laser cavity-solitons have been experimentally and theoretically demonstrated in a laser microcomb [5].