Self-induced modulational instability laser

Summary form only given. We report a novel scheme of passive modelocking in fiber lasers that, based on modulational instability, provides continuous trains of solitons with large duty cycle and rep rates up to 130 GHz. The basic difference with the standard modelocking technique is that in configuration we are describing continuous wave operation is not inhibited as for modelocking. The train of pulses therefore originates from the forcing action of the modulational instability sidebands that lock the cavity modes. The self-induced modulational instability laser can be achieved either by including in the cavity a polarization beam splitter, which, combined with nonlinear polarization, evolution provides a power dependent transmission, or even without it. In the latter case we show that the whole cavity acts as a nonlinear gain element.