title: Effects of structural irregularities on modulational instability phase matching in photonic crystal fibers.
abstract: The effect of structural irregularities in photonic crystal fibers on scalar and vector modulational instability (MI) processes is studied by numerical simulations and experiments. For an anomalous-dispersion regime pump, variations in core ellipticity as small as 0.5% over length scales of the order of several meters are shown to have a negligible effect on scalar MI, yet they completely suppress vector MI. In contrast, for a normal-dispersion regime pump, vector MI is shown to be robust against such fluctuations.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Optique P. M. Duffieux, Université de Franche-Comté, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kibler
authors.forename: Cyril
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Billet
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dudley
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Windeler
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Millot