Intermittent coherence recovery of noise-like pulses in fiber lasers

The noise-like pulses in fiber lasers are incoherent clusters of disordered femtosecond subpulses, with a focused interest in the low-coherence light source and its related applications. However, whether the noise-like pulse can sustain its low-coherence feature still remains a fundamental question that is significant to understanding the nonlinear dynamics and to controlling the coherence of the noise-like pulse. Here, we report unveiled dynamics where the noise-like pulse intermittently evolves into the coherent dissipative soliton and subsequently recovers to the original noise-like pulse-a process opposed to the soliton explosion. Our results may guide the optimal design of ultrafast lasers and contribute to a better understanding of the complex dynamics of nonlinear waves.