Abstract

Modulational instability (MI) involves the growth of initially weak sidebands at the expense of a continuous wave. The existence of MI in the anomalous group-velocity dispersion regime of an optical fiber is well known [1]. Modulation instability in a synchronously pumped fiber loop was recently predicted even in the normal dispersion regime [2] and has been proposed as the mechanism to generate pulses in the modulational instability laser [2,3]. On the other hand, modulation instability in cavityless propagation has been used as seed for later Raman ultrashort pulse generation [4]. In the present work, we analyze the role played by stimulated Raman scattering in the modulational instability dynamics of a synchronously driven fiber cavity. Starting from this study, we propose applications of our device as a low threshold Raman amplifier and as a modulation instability Raman laser.

© 1996 Optical Society of America