Amplification through losses in nonlinear fiber optics

We present the most recent results about a novel modulation instability of a continuous light wave in a normal dispersion nonlinear optical fiber, induced by spectrally asymmetric losses for signal and idler waves. The presence of such spectrally asymmetric losses profile causes energy transfer from the pump to both signal and idler. A variety of applications concerning both amplification of signals and generation of pulses is discussed.