F. Bruyere et O. Audouin, ASSESSMENT OF SYSTEM PENALTIES INDUCED BY POLARIZATION MODE DISPERSION IN A 5 GB S OPTICALLY AMPLIFIED TRANSOCEANIC LINK/, IEEE photonics technology letters, 6(3), 1994, pp. 443-445
The system penalties induced by Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) in
a 5 Gb/s optically amplified link are analyzed. A relation between dif
ferential group delays and system penalties is obtained from numerical
simulations and used to derive analytic formulas for probability dens
ity functions of system penalties. Cumulated probabilities show that P
MDs higher than 20 ps can induce significant fluctuations of the Bit-E
rror-Rate (BER). Characterization of a 6,200 km optically amplified li
nk indicates that the relative contribution of PMD to these fluctuatio
ns is not significant when PMD is limited to 0.1 ps/square-root km.