Design, estimation and experimental validation of optical Polarization Mode Dispersion Compensator in 40 Gbit/s NRZ and RZ optical systems

Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) compensation has been a matter of investigation of several papers in literature. The proposed solutions belong basically to two large families: electronic compensators and optical compensators. Both PMD compensator schemes have advantages and disadvantages: electronic PMD compensators are usually simple to include in line-terminal, potentially low-cost, very fast, and FEC compatible but their development is strongly dependent on IC technology capability that at this time allows device developments up to the 10 Gbit/s bit rates area. Furthermore, they are strongly dependent on modulation formats, and they can operate only on a single channel. Conversely, optical compensators are independent of bit rate and modulation format and potentially they can compensate more channels simultaneously; their major drawbacks are the longer response time and the complexity in the feedback signal process within the control algorithm. In this paper we consider an optical Polarization Mode Dispersion Compensator (PMDC) that is simple to realize and easy to include at limited costs in each EDFA module (distributed compensation) as well as a single-stage front-end compensator. Numerical analysis of the PMDC and experimental results confirm the utility of the PMDC proposed and its capability in compensating DGD larger than 20 ps in NRZ and RZ 40 Gbit/s optical systems.