Adaptive chromatic dispersion compensation using higher order polarization-mode dispersion

The novel adaptive technique for compensating the fiber chromatic dispersion in high-speed optical-fiber transmission by using the higher order polarization-mode dispersion generated when two pieces of polarization-maintaining fibers are connected. Changes in signal wavelength and polarization state are tracked by an automatic polarization controller, which simultaneously adjusts an amount of chromatic dispersion to maximize the eye opening of the received signal. Experiments showed that the dispersion tolerance of a 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero system could be increased about 2.8-fold, from 1000 to 2850 ps/nm.