Automatic optical polarization demultiplexing for polarization division multiplexed signals

Abstract

We propose a new automatic optical polarization demultiplexing scheme for polarization division multiplexed (PDM) signals, which uses the radio frequency (RF) power from a low frequency RF power detector as a control signal. This scheme is based on the intrinsic characteristics of PDM signals and does not need to add a special signal at a PDM transmitter. The effectiveness of this demultiplexing method is experimentally demonstrated in a 2x10 Gb/s on-off-keying (OOK) PDM transmission system.