Monitoring and control of polarization-related impairments in optical fiber systems

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 106 - 125
• Main Authors: Willner, A.E., Nezam, S.M.R.M., Yan, L., Zhongqi Pan, Hauer, M.C.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.2004; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Circuit properties; Control systems; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronics; Emulation; Exact sciences and technology; Integrated optics. Optical fibers and wave guides; Monitoring; Optical and optoelectronic circuits; Optical control; Optical fiber polarization; Optical fibers; Optical losses; Page description languages; Polarization mode dispersion; Stochastic processes; optical fiber dispersion; performance monitoring; Optical telecommunication; PMD emulator; Polarization mode dispersion; Degree of polarization; Optical filter; System performance; optical fiber communications (OFCs); Optical fiber communication; optical filtering; polarization-mode dispersion (PMD); Monitoring; Light dispersion
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2003.822556

Polarization-related impairments have become a critical issue for high-data-rate optical systems, particularly when considering polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization-dependent loss (PDL). In general, polarization effects are stochastic processes and can occur on short or long time scales. Therefore, control and monitoring of these effects may be crucial in any systems-level mitigation. This tutorial will highlight the following key issues: PMD and PDL, monitoring schemes, emulation of proper statistics, interaction, and applications of polarization scrambling.