Comparison of system penalties from first- and multiorder polarization-mode dispersion

We experimentally investigate the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD)-induced system penalty arising from first-order and all-order PMD. We use a measurable quantity, "string" length, to parameterize the penalty, find a deterministic correction to the accepted first-order PMD-induced system penalty approximation, and discuss the implications for system outages. Further, we show that higher orders of PMD introduce an additional penalty scatter that is nearly independent of "string" length, and correlated to the magnitude of the second-order PMD vector.