By numerically solving the coupled laser Ginzburg-Landau equations and using the pulse tracing technique to incorporate the cavity effect in the simulation, we have explicitly calculated the soliton polarization ellipses throughout the cavity of a fiber-ring laser mode-locked by the nonlinear polarization rotation technique, and investigated the soliton polarization dynamics in laser cavities. It was found that in a conventional stable soliton operation state, although the soliton polarization varies as the pulse propagates, at a fixed position inside the laser cavity the soliton polarization is invariant with time. However, in the presence of laser dynamics, at a fixed location within the cavity the soliton could either have multiple alternating fixed polarization states or no fixed polarization state at all, depending on the soliton dynamics.

• Received 4 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.74.046605