Light structures created in one spatial dimension

Summary form only given. A fiber ring resonator constitutes a model system of a nonlinear feedback system in which the combination of self-phase modulation, group velocity dispersion, and interference can create amazingly complex phenomena. We consider such a resonator, driven by a sequence of picosecond pulses from a modelocked laser. We report on experiments and corresponding numerical simulations that reveal a wide variety of possibilities, depending on the choice of parameters.