Polarization mode dispersion compensation by phase diversity detection

A phase diversity detection method is described for compensating for polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fiber at 10 Gb/s. The PMD distorted received signal is separated into its two constituent principal states of polarization (PSP) by maximizing the measured phase difference between the two pseudorandom data streams. The PMD is inferred from the measured phase and the two data streams are resynchronized by introducing appropriate delay/advance in their respective paths prior to merging in a combiner. The PMD source is a specially constructed three-sectioned polarization maintaining fiber that provides a controlled amount of PMD in the range of 1.6-42 ps.