Quaternion approach to PMD and PDL phenomena in optical fiber systems

Author

Karlsson, Magnus ; Petersson, Mats

Author_Institution

Dept. of Microtechnology & Nanoscience, Chalmers Univ. of Technol., Gothenburg, Sweden

Volume

22

Issue

4

fYear

2004

fDate

4/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1137

Lastpage

1146

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the concept of quaternions (which is a generalization of the complex numbers) and quaternion calculus and demonstrate how this theory may be used to simplify the treatment of polarization phenomena in optical fibers. We apply quaternion calculus to two examples: 1) the description of polarization-dependent loss (PDL) elements and concatenation of such and 2) the description of pulse dynamics and broadening in transmission lines with both polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and PDL. Finally we present some novel results from the investigation of pulse broadening in a simple system comprising a PMD element, followed by a perfect polarizer.

Keywords

matrix algebra; optical fibre communication; optical fibre dispersion; optical fibre losses; optical fibre polarisation; PDL; PMD; optical fiber systems; polarization-dependent loss; polarization-mode dispersion; polarizer; pulse broadening; quaternion calculus; Calculus; Optical fiber polarization; Optical fibers; Optical losses; Optical pulses; Page description languages; Polarization mode dispersion; Propagation losses; Quaternions; Transmission line theory;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2004.825330

Filename

1291558