Propagation and break-up of pulses in fiber amplifiers with third-order dispersion

Abstract

Recent studies have revealed an important type of optical pulse (similaritons) with parabolic profiles and linear frequency chirps that propagate in optical fiber amplifiers with constant and distributed gain [1]. In recent papers the effect of third-order fiber dispersion (TOD) on similariton pulse propagation has been studied in fibre amplifiers, and in mode-locked lasers [2]. In fact, the impact of TOD on parabolic pulses propagation is to generate optical shock-type instabilities as shown in Fig.1 (a) [3, 4].