Self-induced modulational instability laser revisited: normal dispersion and dark-pulse train generation

We study theoretically and experimentally the so-called self-induced modulational instability laser and show that the passive mode-locking mechanism that is at play in this laser relies on a dissipative four-wave mixing process that leads to generation of a dark-pulse train in the normal-dispersion regime. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.