Observation of Coexisting Dissipative Solitons in a Mode-Locked Fiber Laser.

We show, experimentally and numerically, that a mode-locked fiber laser can operate in a regime where two dissipative soliton solutions coexist and the laser will periodically switch between the solutions. The two dissipative solitons differ in their pulse energy and spectrum. The switching can be controlled by an external perturbation and triggered even when switching does not occur spontaneously. Numerical simulations unveil the importance of the double-minima loss spectrum and nonlinear gain to the switching dynamics.