Do’s and don’ts for a correct nonlinear PMD emulation in 100 Gb/s PDM-QPSK systems

In this paper, we compare by numerical simulations different schemes to emulate the interaction between polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and nonlinear effects in 100 Gb/s polarization-division multiplexing quadrature phase shift keying (PDM-QPSK) transmission systems in laboratory experiments. We find that the correct choice of emulation scheme strongly depends on the characteristics of the line and, in general, emulating the PMD at the transmitter doesn’t ensure a correct reproduction of the PMD/nonlinear effects interaction.