Soliton modulation instability in fiber lasers

We report experimental evidence of soliton modulation instability in erbium-doped fiber lasers. An alternate type of spectral sideband generation was always experimentally observed on the soliton spectrum of the erbium-doped soliton fiber lasers when energy of the formed solitons reached beyond a certain threshold value. Following this spectral sideband generation, if the pump power of the lasers was further increased, either a new soliton would be formed or the existing solitons would experience dynamical instabilities, such as the period-doubling bifurcations or period-doubling route to chaos. We point out that the mechanism for this soliton spectral sideband generation is the modulation instability of the solitons in the lasers. We further show that, owing to the internal energy balance of a dissipative soliton, modulation instability itself does not destroy the stable soliton evolution in a laser cavity. It is the strong resonant wave coupling between the soliton and dispersive waves that leads to the dynamic instability of the solitons.