Suppression of sideband frequency shifts in the modulational instability spectra of wave propagation in optical fiber systems

In standard optical fibers with constant chromatic dispersion, modulational instability (MI) sidebands execute undesirable frequency shifts due to fiber losses. By means of a technique based on average-dispersion-decreasing dispersion-managed fibers, we achieve both complete suppression of the sideband frequency shifts and fine control of the MI frequencies, without any compromise in the MI power gain. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America