Impact of the modulation instability on supercontinuum generation

Abstract

We make a strong point on the impact of four-wave mixing/modulation instability phenomenon on the generation mechanisms of supercontinuum (SC) in highly nonlinear optical fibers. We demonstrate that the MI can be responsible for ultrabroadband octave-spanning continua for pico- and subpicosecond pulses in the anomalous- as well as in the normal dispersion region. To understand the mechanisms leading to the SC generation, we have solved numerically the one-dimensional generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equation.