Degree of polarization degradation due to cross-phase modulation and its impact on polarization-mode dispersion compensators

Abstract

A novel analytical model is proposed to predict the cross-phase modulation (XPM)-induced depolarization in a two-channel transmission system, in which the Stokes' vector of each channel rotates around a space-invariant pivot by a time-varying angle which depends on the total instantaneous optical power in the fiber, on the angle between pump and probe input Stokes' vectors, and on the walk-off between channels. The model leads to a simple formula of the probe degree of polarization (DOP) which is validated both by simulation and experiment. The model helps identify the key physical factors that determine the XPM-induced performance degradation of DOP-based first-order polarization-mode dispersion compensators, and experiments that quantify such degradation are presented.