High-speed transmission limitations due to Polarization Mode Dispersion

In this paper, the impacts of Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) on the performance of high-speed optical communication system have been reported at different bit rates. The two systems are modeled using older fibers with same PMD coefficient at different bit rates and third is with the new fiber with less PMD coefficient than that of the previous two. The attenuation, chromatic dispersion and non-linear effects have been disabled, so that all the variation of the results is due to PMD. The bit rate is varied from 2.5 to 40 Gbps and the length is varied from 1000 to 20,000 km. It is shown that the impact of PMD increases with the bit rate of system. It is also reported that the impact of PMD becomes intolerable at the bit rates of more than 40 Gbps. And also the PMD produces very minute impact on the system performance for same bit rate with the variation in the fiber length.