Performance analysis of polarimetric PMD monitoring by real-time optical Fourier transformers

A spectral polarimeter based on the real-time optical Fourier transform of one or some consecutive Gaussian pulses extracted from an optical transmission link is proposed and its operational limits evaluated. Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) is calculated from the state-of-polarization spectral rotation rate with 0.36-GHz spectral resolution. The experimental results show sucessful PMD measurement inside 1.9-ps Gaussian return-to-zero pulses in good agreement with the theoretical calculations