Controlling intracavity dual-comb soliton motion for programmable pulse pattern generation

We demonstrate the deterministic control of femtosecond dual-comb soliton motion in an Er:fiber laser. Introducing fast intra-cavity modulation, we control individual solitons within two interlaced soliton combs in the harmonically-modelocked state. Upon extra-cavity recombination of both combs, we can obtain reconfigurable pulse pairs at arbitrary delays. Based on realtime spectroscopy, we resolve the transient inter-soliton trajectories.The approach employs laser-intrinsic soliton dynamics and provides all-optically swept pulse pairs for i.e. pump-probe spectroscopy at ⪆kHz scanning frequencies.