Polarization-mode dispersion mitigation by a fiber-based 2R regenerator combined with synchronous modulation

Mitigation of polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) by an optical signal regenerator based on spectrum broadening and slicing using normal-dispersion fiber is analyzed. It is shown that pulse distortion caused by PMD can be restored by the 2R (amplitude regeneration and reshaping) regenerator when differential group delay between the orthogonal polarization components is roughly within the range of pulsewidth. Additional synchronous amplitude and phase modulation in front of the 2R regenerator significantly improves the performance.