Statistical measurements of BER fluctuations due to PMD in 10-Gb/s optical transmissions

Author

Santos, Alexandre Bessa dos ; Jimenez, Marcelo R. ; Von der Weid, Jean Pierre ; Djupsjöbacka, Anders

Volume

14

Issue

7

fYear

2002

fDate

7/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

926

Lastpage

928

Abstract

Polarization-mode dispersion induces signal fading and fluctuating power penalties in optical systems. The intrinsic uncertainty of the bit error rate (BER) measurements combined to the time needed to perform power adjustments for a power penalty measurement can completely distort the statistics of the as-measured power penalties. We show that measuring the BER statistics and using the receiver sensitivity power dependence gives a better measurement of the power penalty statistics. The influence of the statistics of error detection in the measurements must be considered in order to define the correct measuring time for each situation.

Keywords

error detection; fluctuations; optical fibre communication; optical fibre dispersion; optical fibre polarisation; optical receivers; sensitivity; statistics; 10 Gbit/s; BER fluctuations; BER statistics; Gb/s optical transmissions; bit error rate measurements; error detection; fluctuating power penalties; measuring time; polarization-mode dispersion; power adjustments; power penalty measurement; power penalty statistics; receiver sensitivity power dependence; signal fading; statistical measurement; statistics; Bit error rate; Distortion measurement; Error analysis; Fluctuations; Optical distortion; Optical receivers; Polarization mode dispersion; Power measurement; Statistics; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2002.1012387

Filename

1012387