Generation of conventional and dissipative solitons in a graphene-mode-locked fiber laser

We report on the optical saturable absorption of graphene and demonstrate its application for the generation of conventional soliton (CS) and dissipative soliton (DS) in an erbium-doped fiber laser. By precisely adjusting the polarization controller, soliton propagation exhibits two optional directions with different cavity lengths and dispersion. The fiber laser is capable of generating 800 fs CS with clear spectral sidebands and 18.2 ps DS with steep spectral edges, respectively. Our results show that the fiber laser emitting two different ultrashort pulse sources is quite attractive for potential applications requiring different pulse profiles.