Novel mechanism of suppression of radiation by dispersion-managed solitons in randomly birefringent fibers

Summary form only given.Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) in linear transmission systems results in splitting of an arbitrarily polarized input pulse into two orthogonal polarizations that arrive at the output at different time moments. This double imaging causes degradation of the bit error rate (BER) in systems using non-return-to-zero (NRZ) or chirped RZ formats. Solitons in uniform-dispersion fibers with moderately strong PMD can withstand splitting owing to a nonlinear binding force that keeps their polarization components together. However, PMD does degrade performance of soliton systems by causing the pulse to emit linear dispersive waves, which are polarized primarily at 90/spl deg/ to the main pulse. This PMD-induced radiation decreases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver by both contributing to the noise field and reducing the soliton energy. This limits the maximum transmission distance that can be achieved with a BER below a given threshold.