Optical Endless Polarization Stabilization at 9 krad/s With FPGA-Based Controller

We demonstrate endless polarization stabilization with a control speed of up to 9 krad/s, over random Poincare sphere trajectories. These are in total >35 Mrad long, are composed in particular of difficult-to-track circles with all radii and orientations, and thereby include all possible worst cases. The maximum polarization mismatch and relative intensity errors are 0.13 rad and 0.43%, respectively. The controller runs on a field-programmable gate array and uses a commercial multistage LiNbO3 polarization transformer as the control device.

[1]  Pierpaolo Boffi,et al.  Polarization Stabilizer for Polarization-Division Multiplexed Optical Systems , 2007 .

[2]  M. Cappuzzo,et al.  Reset-free integrated polarization controller using phase shifters , 2004, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[3]  K. Kotten,et al.  Extremely fast (microsecond timescale) polarization changes in high speed long haul WDM transmission systems , 2004, Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2004. OFC 2004.

[4]  Reinhold Noe,et al.  Endless polarization control systems for coherent optics , 1988 .

[5]  M. Martinelli,et al.  Polarization Stabilization in Optical Communications Systems , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[6]  G. R. Walker,et al.  Polarization control for coherent communications , 1990 .

[7]  P. Oswald,et al.  Deterministic analysis of endless tuning of polarization controllers , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[8]  D. Sandel,et al.  5.94-Tb/s 1.49-b/s/Hz (40/spl times/2/spl times/2/spl times/40 Gb/s) RZ-DQPSK polarization-division multiplex C-band transmission over 324 km , 2005, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[9]  F. Heismann,et al.  Fast automatic polarization control system , 1992, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[10]  W. Weiershausen,et al.  Field trial results on statistics of fast polarization changes in long haul WDM transmission systems , 2005, OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest. Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2005..

[11]  F. Heismann,et al.  Broadband reset-free automatic polarization controller , 1991 .

[12]  F. Heismann,et al.  Broadband reset-free automatic polarisation controller , 1991 .

[13]  D. Sandel,et al.  PMD in high-bit-rate transmission and means for its mitigation , 2004, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[14]  Reinhold Noe,et al.  Crosstalk detection schemes for polarization division multiplex transmission , 2001 .