Bound soliton pairs in photonic crystal fiber

We demonstrate experimentally the formation and stable propagation of bound soliton pairs in a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber. The bound pairs occur at a particular power as the consequence of high-order soliton fission. They propagate over long distances with constant inter-soliton frequency and time separation. During propagation, the soliton self-frequency shift causes the central frequency of the pairs to move towards longer wavelength. The formation and characteristics of the bound soliton pairs are confirmed numerically. We believe this to be the first experimental observation of such bound soliton pairs.