Comparison of Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation equalizer performance with OOK and DPSK at 10.7 Gb/s

We experimentally compare MLSE equalization with OOK and DPSK in the presence of chromatic- and polarization-mode dispersion. We show that the 3-dB OSNR advantage of DPSK is lost in the presence of chromatic dispersion but maintained with polarization-mode dispersion.