Effects of polarization-mode dispersion in dual-pump fiber-optic parametric amplifiers

Effects of polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) on dual-pump parametric amplifiers are investigated numerically using a set of four vector equations. It is found that PMD induces large fluctuations in the signal power that can affect the system performance by enhancing the outage probability. The average gain itself is reduced by more than 10 dB even for a relatively small value of 0.05 ps/√km for the PMD parameter. For larger values of the PMD parameter, the gain spectrum begins to distort and loses its flatness. We also show that the polarization dependence of gain cannot be eliminated by using orthogonally polarized pumps.