In-line performance monitoring for RZ-DPSK signals using asynchronous amplitude histogram evaluation

The asynchronous amplitude histogram evaluation technique has been applied to in-line performance monitoring for return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signals. The principle of operation was studied by simulation and experiment. It has been demonstrated that residual dispersion and signal optical signal-to-noise ratio can be obtained by Gaussian curve fitting of only one peak in the amplitude histogram of the RZ-DPSK signal.