Observation of dip-type sidebands in a soliton fiber laser

We report on the experimental observation of dip-type spectral sidebands on the soliton spectra of a passively mode locked fiber laser. We point out that the formation of the dip sidebands is due to a four-wave-mixing type of parametric process between the soliton and dispersive waves induced by the periodic soliton parameter variation in the laser cavity. Numerical simulations have well reproduced the experimental results.