Sideband formation in soliton lasers and transmission

Mode locking processes in fibre lasers can force operation into regimes where the cavity length (and hence energy variations) are comparable to the soliton period. In this situation sidebands have been observed in the output spectrum. To explain these sidebands, the authors describe the mechanism as a two stage process. The energy perturbations cause dispersive wave radiation to be emitted from the pulse over a broad band of frequencies. A phase matching criterion then selects individual wavelengths which grow into sidebands