Modulation instability in the weak normal dispersion region of passive fiber ring cavities.

We report the experimental observation of modulation instability in the weak normal dispersion region of a passive fiber ring cavity. We show that the fourth-order dispersion strongly modifies the dynamics of the cavity through the generation of new instability bands. Experimental results are in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions and numerical simulations.

Dynamics of Turing and Faraday instabilities in a longitudinally modulated fiber-ring cavity.

We experimentally investigate the round-trip-to-round-trip dynamics of the modulation instability spectrum in a passive fiber-ring cavity presenting an inhomogeneous dispersion profile. By implementing a real-time spectroscopy technique, we are able to record successive single-shot spectra, which display the evolution of the system toward a stationary state. We find that the two instability regimes (Turing and Faraday) that compete in this kind of inhomogeneous cavity not only differ by their characteristic frequency but also by their dynamical behavior. The dynamic transition between those two regimes of instability is also presented.

Shock wave generation triggered by a weak background in optical fibers.

We experimentally report the observation of dispersive shock waves from a short pulse superimposed onto a small continuous wave background in optical fibers. We show that the background allows us to strongly enhance the extension and contrast of the oscillatory wave train inherent to the dispersive shock. More than seven periods of oscillations with high contrast are observed experimentally and confirmed with numerical simulations. The dynamics of the process are simply explained from spectro-temporal representations.