Farey tree and devil's staircase of frequency-locked breathers in ultrafast lasers.

ABSTRACT: Nonlinear systems with two competing frequencies show locking or resonances. In lasers, the two interacting frequencies can be the cavity repetition rate and a frequency externally applied to the system. Conversely, the excitation of breather oscillations in lasers naturally triggers a second characteristic frequency in the system, therefore showing competition between the cavity repetition rate and the breathing frequency. Yet, the link between breathing solitons and frequency locking is missing. Here we demonstrate frequency locking at Farey fractions of a breather laser. The winding numbers exhibit the hierarchy of the Farey tree and the structure of a devil's staircase. Numerical simulations of a discrete laser model confirm the experimental findings. The breather laser may therefore s

SUBMITTER: Wu X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9527256 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature