Independent and Simultaneous Monitoring of Chromatic and Polarization-Mode Dispersion in OOK and DPSK Transmission

We propose and demonstrate a novel technique for a simultaneous chromatic and first-order polarization-mode-dispersion (PMD) monitoring method using a partial bit delay Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with radio-frequency (RF) clock tone monitoring. RF clock tones at the output of the two branches of the MZI behave oppositely with increasing chromatic dispersion (CD) which improves the sensitivity of the measurement. The technique increases CD monitoring sensitivity over standard clock tone methods by a factor of two for a nonreturn-to-zero intensity modulation format and a factor of five for a differential-phase-shift-keying modulation format. The accuracy of PMD monitoring is also enhanced. Moreover, the partial bit delay allows the signal to pass through the constructive branch of the MZI with no observable degradation of the signal quality, allowing it to be normally detected by a receiver