System outage probability due to the combined effect of PMD and PDL

The system outage probability induced by polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization dependent loss (PDL) is studied by Monte Carlo simulations using a new waveplate model. The previous waveplate model gives zero PMD and PDL probability densities when PMD and PDL exceed certain values, while our new model does not have such a limitation. It is shown that the system outage probability strongly depends on the interaction of PMD and PDL and the acceptable PMD limit drops significantly with the increase of PDL.