Supercontinuum generation by the modulation instability

The Modulation Instability turns out to be responsible for the generation of Supercontinua for pico- and subpicosecond pulses in the anomalous- as well as in the normal dispersion regime. For this case the spectrum is only modified, but not originally caused by other effects as Raman scattering, Self-steepening or higher-order dispersion, according to our calculations based on the generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Results are discussed and compared with experimental data.