Abstract

As data rates increase, the effect of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) on system performance becomes ever more important.^1,2 Since PMD is a stochastic effect yielding finite probabilities for the occurrence of high power penalties, it is impossible to specify a required receive power that fully eliminates the adverse effects of PMD. Instead, one allocates a power margin N_[dB] for PMD in the system power budget, and specifies the outage probability P_out as the probability that the power penalty due to PMD exceeds this margin.³ As the values for P_out specified by system operators can be as low as 10⁻⁸ for N_[dB] = 1, laboratory tests aiming at the measurement of P_out are hardly feasible.⁴ Instead, one resorts simulation by computing.

© 2002 Optical Society of America