Dichroism effect on polarization-modulated optical systems using Stokes parameters coherent detection

Antipodal Stokes parameters shift keying (ASPSK) performance is analyzed in the presence of dichroism. Two different approximate analytical approaches are used, and the obtained results are in good agreement. In the presence of dichroism not only does a sensitivity penalty arise, but also the system performance is not independent of the received state of polarization. However, these effect are not very relevant even in situations in which a large amount of dichroism is present, such as when inline amplifiers are present, so that the system shows a good tolerance with respect to dichroism. The results confirm the feasibility of ASPSK for point-to-point and multipoint systems even in conjunction with emerging optical technologies such as optical amplifiers and nonlinear couplers