Dissipative solitons are remarkably localized states of a physical system that arise from the dynamical balance between nonlinearity, dispersion and environmental energy exchange. They are the most universal form of soliton that can exist, and are seen in far-from-equilibrium systems in many fields, including chemistry, biology and physics. There has been particular interest in studying their properties in mode-locked lasers, but experiments have been limited by the inability to track the dynamical soliton evolution in real time. Here, we use simultaneous dispersive Fourier transform and time-lens measurements to completely characterize the spectral and temporal evolution of ultrashort dissipative solitons as their dynamics pass through a transient unstable regime with complex break-up and collisions before stabilization. Further insight is obtained from reconstruction of the soliton amplitude and phase and calculation of the corresponding complex-valued eigenvalue spectrum. These findings show how real-time measurements provide new insights into ultrafast transient dynamics in optics.

耗散孤子是物理系统的显着局部状态，它是由非线性，色散和环境能量交换之间的动态平衡引起的。它们是可以存在的最普遍的孤子形式，在化学，生物学和物理学等许多领域的非平衡系统中都可以看到它们。在锁模激光器中研究它们的特性引起了人们的特别兴趣，但是由于无法实时跟踪动态孤子的演化，实验受到了限制。在这里，我们使用同步色散傅里叶变换和时间透镜测量来完全表征超短耗散孤子的光谱和时间演化，因为它们的动力学经过具有不稳定分解和碰撞的瞬态不稳定状态，然后才稳定下来。从孤子振幅和相位的重构以及相应复数值特征值谱的计算中获得了进一步的见解。这些发现表明，实时测量如何为光学超快瞬态动力学提供新的见解。