Full-field characterization of breather dynamics over the whole length of an optical fiber

International audienceFull-field longitudinal characterization of picosecond pulse train formation in optical fibers is reported. The spatio-temporal evolution is obtained via fast and non-invasive distributed measurements in phase and intensity of the main spectral components of the pulses. To illustrate the performance of the setup, we report the first time-domain experimental observation of the symmetry breaking of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrences. Experimental results are in good agreement with numerical simulations