System performance evaluation in terrestrial systems with high polarization mode dispersion and the effect of chirping

We evaluate the system power penalty for different modulation formats-nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ), return-to-zero (RZ), dispersion-managed solitons, and prechirped RZ-in the presence of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) for 10-Gb/s terrestrial systems. All orders of PMD are considered by simulating the fiber using the coarse-step method, and a statistical approach is used to estimate the occasional fading of the signals. We show that pulses with lower duty-cycles perform better in general, and the system performance is improved if appropriate prechirping interacts with the residual chromatic dispersion of the fiber.