PMD 2ND-ORDER EFFECTS ON PULSE-PROPAGATION IN SINGLE-MODE OPTICAL FIBERS

The time-space varying birefringence in single-mode optical fibers cau ses the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) to be a serious problem in high bit-rate transmissions, The PMD first- and second-order statistic s are well known in the literature, but second-order PMD-induced pulse distortions have still to be clarified for sequences of pulses of arb itrary shape. We give, for the first time, the exact PMD time impulse response, up to second order, We show, both numerically and experiment ally, that the effect of the rotation of the principal states of polar ization (PSP) is to generate power overshoots on the ''1'' and ''0'' b it sequences.