Soliton Transmission in Fibers with Polarization-Mode Dispersion

Abstract

The polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) is a dominant statistical effect in ultra-high bit rate transmission systems. In this article, soliton transmission in constant and randomly varying birefringent fibers is reviewed. In particular, soliton robustness to PMD is analyzed and compared with that of linear pulses. It is found that solitons broaden in proportion to the square root of distance, like in the case of linear pulses, but with a reduced coefficient.

Keywords:

• polarization-mode dispersion (PMD)
• soliton transmission

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) of Portugal, FEDER and POSI, within project POSI/CPS/47389/2002, PMD—Polarization Mode Dispersion in High-Speed Optical Communication Systems.