Electrooptic polarization scramblers for optically amplified long-haul transmission systems

To combat polarization hole burning in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, we modulate the input polarization state to a 8800-km long 5.33-Gb/s NRZ transmission system at rates between 10 kHz and 10 GHz using integrated-optic polarization scramblers in lithium niobate. At modulation frequencies of 40 kHz and 10.66 GHz, we observe improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio of the received electrical signal of 4 and 5 dB, respectively.<
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