POLARIZATION-INDEPENDENT PHOTONIC SWITCHING-SYSTEM USING FAST AUTOMATIC POLARIZATION CONTROLLERS

We report a novel 16 X 16 polarization-independent photonic switching system that uses a rapidly reconfigurable, polarization-dependent swit ch array in combination with fast electrooptic polarization controller s, which automatically transform the arbitrary polarization states of the incoming optical signals into the desired polarization state of th e lithium niobate switch array. In a 1.7-Gb / s fiber-optic transmissi on experiment, we demonstrate that the controllers are capable of stab ilizing rapid polarization fluctuations of up to 500 rad / s.