Coherent optical communication using

polarization multiple-input-multiple-output
Yan Han and Guifang Li
College of Optics and Photonics / CREOL & FPCE, University of Central Florida
4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816
[email protected]

Abstract: Polarization-division multiplexed (PDM) optical signals can

potentially be demultiplexed by coherent detection and digital signal
processing without using optical dynamic polarization control at the
receiver. In this paper, we show that optical communications using PDM is
analogous to wireless communications using multiple-input-multiple-output
(MIMO) antennae and thus algorithms for channel estimation in wireless
MIMO can be ready applied to optical polarization MIMO (PMIMO).
Combined with frequency offset and phase estimation algorithms,
simulations show that PDM quadrature phase-shift keying signals can be
coherently detected by the proposed scheme using commercial
semiconductor lasers while no optical phase locking and polarization
control are required. This analogy further suggests the potential application
of space-time coding in wireless communications to optical polarization
MIMO systems and relates the problem of polarization-mode dispersion in
fiber transmission to the multi-path propagation in wireless
communications.
©2005 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.1660) Coherent communications; (060.4510) Optical communications;
(060.5060) Phase modulation; (260.5430) Polarization; (070.6020) Signal processing

References and links

1. M. G. Taylor, “Coherent detection method using DSP for demodulation of signal and subsequent
equalization of propagation impairments,” IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett. 16, 674-676 (2004).
2. A. H. Gnauck, J. Sinsky, P. J. Winzer, and S. Chandrasekhar; “Linear microwave-domain dispersion
compensation of 10-Gb/s signals using heterodyne detection,” in Proceedings of Optical Fiber
Communications Conference 2005, paper PDP31.
3. D-S. Ly-Gagnon, K. Katoh, and K. Kikuchi, “Unrepeated 210-km transmission with coherent detection and
digital signal processing of 20-Gb/s QPSK signal,” in Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communications
Conference 2005, paper OTuL4.
4. B. Glance, “Polarization independent coherent optical receiver,” J. Lightwave Technol. 5, 274-276 (1987).
5. D. Gesbert, M. Shafi, D-S Shiu, P. J. Smith, and A. Naguib, “From theory to practice: an overview of MIMO
space-time coded wireless systems,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun. 21, 281-302 (2003).
6. A.H. Sayed, Fundamentals of Adaptive Filtering, (Wiley, NY, 2003).
7. M. Tseytlin, O. Ritterbush, and A. Salamon, “Digital, endless polarization control for polarization
multiplexed fiber-optic communications,” in Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communications Conference
2003, vol. 1, pp. 103-103.
8. S. G.Evangelides Jr., L. F.Mollenauer, J. P.Gordon, and N. S.Bergano, “Polarization multiplexing with
solitons,” J. Lightwave Technol. 10, 28-35, 1992.

1. Introduction
Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) can significantly increase the capacity of optical
communication systems. The transmission cost per bit is reduced with the increase of capacity
since the WDM channels share the same fiber and optical amplifiers. To accommodate more
channels to further increase capacity, closer channel spacing and/or more wavelengths should

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(C) 2005 OSA 19 September 2005 / Vol. 13, No. 19 / OPTICS EXPRESS 7527
be used. This may not only require the use of broadband optical amplifiers but also increase
system complexity in terms of multiplexing, demultiplexing and dispersion management.
Another potentially economical approach to increasing the overall capacity is to use advanced
modulation formats with higher spectral efficiency. With the reduced symbol rates, systems
using high-spectral efficiency modulation formats could be more tolerant to chromatic and
polarization-mode dispersion. Generally, there exists a tradeoff between spectral efficiency
and sensitivity of a modulation format. Coherent detection is usually considered necessary to
alleviate this tradeoff. For example, quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) with coherent
detection has the same sensitivity as binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), but doubles the
spectral efficiency. Additionally, coherent detection can also facilitate channel demultiplexing
and chromatic dispersion compensation in a WDM system [1, 2].
Optical phase locking and polarization control are generally required in coherent detection.
Conventional phase locking uses costly optical phase-locking loops. With the advance of A/D
converter, phase locking (or phase estimation) using digital signal processing (DSP) at 10
GSymbol/s has been recently reported [3]. Polarization dependence of coherent detection can
be managed by using optical dynamic polarization control or polarization diversity receiver
[4]. In a conventional polarization diversity receiver, two sets of receivers are used to
independently detect signal components in the two orthogonal polarization states and the
original signal is recovered after combining two components, which is rather inefficient in
terms of hardware. However, when two PDM channels are simultaneously transmitted at
orthogonal polarization states, polarization diversity receiver in principle can receiver both
channels, for example, by using optical dynamic polarization control at the receiver. It has
been suggested that PDM optical signals can potentially be demultiplexed by combining
coherent detection and polarization/phase diversity [1]. In this paper, we show that optical
communications using PDM is analogous to wireless communications using multiple-input-
multiple-output (MIMO) antennae and thus algorithms for channel estimation in wireless
MIMO can be ready applied to optical polarization MIMO (PMIMO). The effectiveness of
this scheme when using commercial semiconductor lasers free of active optical controls is
also investigated by simulations.
2. Optical polarization MIMO
Data_x
Ex '
I x' Ix
// E x +
// -
PBS PBC PBS
Optical
Laser1
E 'y Hybrid
Q x' Qx
⊥ ⊥ +
Ey -
Data_y
D
S
I 'y P Iy
// +
-
PBS
Optical
Laser2 Hybrid
LO Q 'y Qy
⊥ +
-

Fig. 1. Schematic of an optical polarization MIMO system. PBS: polarization beam splitter;
PBC: polarization beam combiner; LO: local oscillator.

The schematic of an optical polarization MIMO system is shown in Fig. 1. In the transmitter,
two synchronous data are modulated in orthogonal polarizations. The modulation format can
be amplitude and/or phase modulation. E x and E y are the complex representation of the
modulated signal in the parallel and perpendicular polarization state. After transmission

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through fiber, the polarization of lightwave is usually not preserved. For an arbitrary
orientated PBS, the received signal, E x' or E 'y , contains significant crosstalk between the
original signals in the two orthogonal polarization states. The output electrical field can be
related to the input electrical field by
⎛E' ⎞ ⎛ J 11 J 12 ⎞⎛ E x ⎞ ⎛E ⎞
⎜ x ⎟ = L⎜⎜ ⎟⎜ ⎟ = JL ⎜ x⎟
(1)
⎜E'
⎝ y
⎟
⎠ ⎝ J 21 J 22 ⎟⎠⎜⎝ E y ⎟⎠ ⎜E ⎟
⎝ y⎠
where L is a real scalar to describe the optical loss from the input to the output and the
polarization change due to fiber is described by a unitary Jones matrix J . (For simplicity of
analysis, polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization dependent loss (PDL) of fiber
and other inline optical components are neglected.) Equation (1) describes a two-input and
two-output MIMO system. Since J is a unitary matrix, this MIMO system, in theory, can
transmit two synchronous channels without any penalty [5]. Due to environment variations,
the polarization of lightwave in fiber generally drifts with the time. The rate of this
polarization drift is generally much slower than the transmission data rate. Therefore, the
system can be designed to estimate the Jones matrix J for the entire frame using a training
sequence in the preamble of each frame to remove polarization crosstalk. Various channel
estimation algorithms can be used to estimate J . Considering the high date rate used in
optical communications, the LMS (least-mean-squares) algorithm is chosen in this paper
because of its simplicity [6]. The J can be estimated by using the following iterative
algorithm.
'
⎡⎛ ' ⎞ ⎛E ⎞ ⎤ ⎛E ⎞
E
J i = J i −1 + μ × ⎢⎜ x' ⎟ − J i −1 L⎜ x ⎟ ⎥ × L⎜ x ⎟ , i ≥ 0, J −1 = initial guess (2)
⎜
⎢ Ey ⎟ ⎜E ⎟ ⎥ ⎜E ⎟
⎣⎝ ⎠i ⎝ y ⎠i⎦ ⎝ y ⎠i
Quadrature

Quadrature

(a) (b)

In-Phase In-Phase

Fig. 2. Signal constellations. (a) Received signal; (b) after applying the estimated Jones matrix.
No laser phase noise and frequency offset.
where μ is a positive step-size, i is the label of training sequences and L can be obtained
from the received average power. Since E x' and E 'y are generally complex, 90o optical
hybrids are used to simultaneously measure the in-phase I x' and I 'y and quadrature Q x' and
Q 'y components. If the 90o hybrid is polarization-insensitive, the receiver in Fig. 1 can be
further simplified by using only one hybrid followed by PBSs. The state of polarization of LO
is chosen so that its power is equally split between orthogonal polarizations. In this section,
laser2 is assumed phase-locked to the laser1. The inverse of estimated J can then be applied
to the received signals to recover the transmitted data I x , I y , Q x and Q y . Because J is a
unitary matrix, the inversion equals the conjugate transpose. In optical polarization MIMO

#7830 - $15.00 USD Received 15 June 2005; revised 1 September 2005; accepted 8 September 2005
(C) 2005 OSA 19 September 2005 / Vol. 13, No. 19 / OPTICS EXPRESS 7529
systems, the received signal polarization estimation and tracking is performed by DSP
algorithm and no optical dynamic polarization control is required at the receiver. A different
scheme named digital endless polarization control using nine-hypotheses gradient search
algorithm was proposed in [7].
1
Re(J11 )
0.8 Im(J11 )
Re(J12 )
0.6
Im(J12 )
0.4 Re(J21 )
Im(J21 )
0.2 Re(J22 )
Im(J22 )
0

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Fig. 3. Learning curves of the LMS algorithm used to estimate the Jones matrix.
The performance of the proposed polarization MIMO system is evaluated by numerical
simulations. The transmitter and receiver are the same as in Fig. 1. As an example, BPSK
modulation format is attempted, which is generated by an ideal phase modulator. The symbol
rate is 10 GSymbol/s. The transmission fibers comprise 100 km standard single-mode fiber
(with a dispersion of -16 ps/nm/km, a loss of 0.2 dB/km and a core area of 80 μm 2 ) and
matching 20 km dispersion compensating fiber (with a dispersion of 80 ps/nm/km, a loss of
0.5 dB/km and a core area of 20 μm 2 ) with randomly varying birefringence simulated by the
coarse-step method [8]. The PMD coefficient of the fibers is 0.1 ps/ km . The fiber
nonlinear-index coefficient is 2.6x10-20 m2/W. An optical amplifier is used to amplify the
received signal emulating the ASE-dominated scenario. The received power before optical
amplifier is -30 dBm, corresponding to a 0 dBm launch power. The noise figure of the optical
amplifier is 5 dB. The optical filter before receiver is a Gaussian filter with a 3 dB bandwidth
of 25 GHz. The frame length in simulations is set to 1024 symbols. The length of training
sequence in the preamble is 32 symbols. The constellations of received signals in orthogonal
polarizations are shown in Fig. 2(a), where significant crosstalk exists. In this paper, the blue
and red symbols represent the parallel and perpendicular polarization states, respectively.
After applying the Jones matrix J that is estimated from the training sequence, the crosstalk
is removed and BPSK constellations are obtained in Fig. 2(b). The learning curve of LMS
algorithm is shown in Fig. 3. The eight lines represent the real and imaginary components of
Jones matrix J i in the iterative algorithm. A unit matrix is used as the initial guess. The
algorithm reaches the steady state after ~20 iterations. There is a tradeoff between the
accuracy and convergence speed in LMS algorithm [6].
3. Optical polarization MIMO with phase estimation
In Section 2, the transmitter laser and LO (laser1 and laser 2) have been assumed to be phase-
locked. In practice, phase locking can be performed using DSP algorithms without
modification to Fig. 1. The algorithm then comprises two steps: i) Estimate J using a training
sequence and remove polarization crosstalk as in Section 2; ii) Phase drift of LO within a
frame is estimated using an algorithm similar to [3]. The phase estimation algorithm squares
received signals (quadruples the signal for QPSK signals) to remove the intended phase

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modulation and track the LO phase relative to carrier. Signals in each frame are separated into
16-symbol blocks. The estimated LO phase within each block is averaged. In experiments
reported in [3], the frequency offset between laser1 and laser2 are controlled within 10 MHz
and the algorithm did not distinguish the phase drift due to phase noise or frequency offset.
Quadrature

Quadrature

Quadrature
(a) (b) (c)
In-Phase In-Phase In-Phase

Fig. 4. Signal constellations. (a) Received signal; (b) step-1: remove polarization crosstalk; (c)
step-2: phase estimation. 1 MHz laser linewidth and no frequency offset.
Quadrature
Quadrature

(a) (b) Quadrature (c)

In-Phase In-Phase In-Phase

Fig. 5. Signal constellations. (a) Received signal; (b) step-1: remove polarization crosstalk; (c)
step-2: phase estimation. 1 MHz laser linewidth and 10 MHz frequency offset.

The simulation parameters are the same as in Section 2 except that the laser linewidth is
assumed to be 1 MHz, which is typical for commercially available semiconductor lasers. The
results are shown in Fig. 4. After removing the crosstalk between orthogonal polarizations
(Fig. 4(b)), the resultant constellations contain significant phase noises. Using the phase
estimation algorithm described above, BPSK constellations in Fig. 4(c) are obtained. In Fig. 4,
laser frequency offset is neglected. If laser frequency offset is small, it can be treated as laser
phase noise. For a 10 MHz frequency offset, the same algorithm is still effective and the
results are shown in Fig. 5. The slight asymmetry in the constellations is due to 5.8o of phase
rotation in the 16-symbol block corresponding to 10 MHz frequency offset. This phase error
increases with the frequency offset and can be reduced by using block length shorter than 16
symbols, but as a tradeoff, the estimated phase error due to laser linewidth increases.
4. Optical polarization MIMO with frequency and phase estimation
In Fig. 4 and 5, the LMS algorithm used to estimate J is almost not affected by the phase
rotation due to small frequency offset because the adaptive LMS algorithm can track this
phase rotation. In the presence of large frequency offset, the expected J becomes periodic,
corresponding to the offset frequency. Simulations show that the LMS algorithm is still
effective with a frequency offset of 100 MHz (1% symbol rate), but fails when the offset is 1
GHz (10% symbol rate). Therefore, for an offset as large as 1 GHz, additional frequency
estimation algorithm should be employed. The overall algorithm then comprises three steps: i)
frequency estimation, ii) polarization MIMO channel estimation and iii) phase estimation. The
MIMO channel estimation and phase estimation are the same as the steps described in Section

#7830 - $15.00 USD Received 15 June 2005; revised 1 September 2005; accepted 8 September 2005
(C) 2005 OSA 19 September 2005 / Vol. 13, No. 19 / OPTICS EXPRESS 7531
3. In this paper, the following simple frequency estimation method is used. To avoid unknown
crosstalk between orthogonal polarizations in frequency estimation, an additional training
sequence comprises 32 symbols of 1’s in both polarizations. The phase rotation due to
frequency offset is estimated by calculating the phase difference of adjacent received signals
and averaged over 32 symbols. Using this algorithm, the simulation results for a 1 GHz
frequency offset and 1 MHz laser linewidth are shown in Fig. 6. The clear BPSK
constellations in Fig. 6(d) demonstrate the effectiveness of algorithm to demodulate PDM
BPSK signals without using optical phase locking and polarization control.
Quadrature

Quadrature
(a) (b)

In-Phase In-Phase
Quadrature

Quadrature

(c) (d)

In-Phase In-Phase

Fig. 6. Signal constellations. (a) Received signal; (b) step-1: frequency estimation; (c) step-2:
remove polarization crosstalk; (d) step-3: phase estimation. 1 MHz linewidth and 1 GHz offset.

Since both in-phase and quadrature components are received in optical polarization
MIMO, it is natural to transmit two QPSK signals in the two orthogonal polarizations and
each of four balanced receivers receives a tributary. Four-fold increase of capacity is readily
achieved. For a 1 GHz laser frequency offset and 1 MHz laser linewidth, the results are shown
in Fig. 7. In the third step of phase estimation, the received QPSK signal is quadrupled,
instead of squared. The results show the potential of optical polarization MIMO system to
quadruple the spectral efficiency of existing optical communication systems using PDM
QPSK format, coherent detection and simple DSP almost free of power penalty. More
complicated formats, such as 8-level phase-shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation
can also be used with optical polarization MIMO.
5. Discussion
Since the LMS algorithm can track the variations of MIMO channel, it estimates both J and
the phase difference between laser1 and laser2 in the preamble. Therefore, if the laser
linewidth is sufficiently narrow that phase drifts within a frame can be neglected, no phase
estimation is required at all. For example, the algorithm used in Fig. 2 (without phase
estimation) is still effective when the laser linewidth is set to 10 kHz, which corresponds to
solid state lasers or fiber lasers. The standard deviation of phase drift during a frame can be

#7830 - $15.00 USD Received 15 June 2005; revised 1 September 2005; accepted 8 September 2005
(C) 2005 OSA 19 September 2005 / Vol. 13, No. 19 / OPTICS EXPRESS 7532
calculated as 2πΔνT , where T is the length of frame and Δν is the beat linewidth of
laser1 and laser2. The calculated standard deviation for 20 kHz beat linewidth is only 6.5o.

Quadrature
Quadrature

(a) (b)
In-Phase In-Phase
Quadrature

Quadrature

(c) (d)

In-Phase In-Phase
Fig. 7. Signal constellations. (a) Received signal; (b) step-1: frequency estimation; (c) step-2:
remove polarization crosstalk; (d) step-3: phase estimation. 1 MHz linewidth and 1 GHz offset.

The maximum frame duration is determined by the speed of polarization fluctuations. In

the proposed scheme, polarization fluctuations within a frame are assumed to be small so that
the estimated J based on the training sequence is applicable for the entire frame. In field
measurements, the fastest recorded polarization fluctuations are on the order of a few
milliseconds. By contrast, the frame duration of a SONET/SDH frame is 125 microseconds.
Therefore, optical polarization MIMO should be applicable to SONET/SDH if the training
sequences can be included in the frame overhead and dedicated DSP chips are developed.
In Eq. (1), the PMD and PDL are neglected for simplicity of analysis. Although the PMD
is included in the simulation, the amount of PMD is small for a 10 Gsymbol/s system and has
a negligible impact on the signal quality. Since PMD and PDL can cause the depolarization of
lightwave, it is potentially detrimental for optical polarization MIMO. The impact of non-
negligible PMD and PDL in optical polarization MIMO needs further investigations.
Similarly, optical nonlinearities such as cross-phase modulation in the WDM transmission
may also depolarize the lightwave and their effects need further investigations.
The analogy between optical polarization MIMO and wireless MIMO has more profound
implications than polarization demultiplexing. A potential application of this analogy is the
use of space-time coding in optical polarization MIMO. Various space-time codes in [5] can
be potentially adapted for optical polarization MIMO and novel codes dedicated to optical
polarization MIMO may be found in the future. Another important application of this analogy
is to relate the PMD in fiber transmission to the multi-path propagation in wireless
communications. To the first order, PMD can be described by the differential group delay
between two principle states of polarization. This simply corresponds to two different paths
from the input to the output in wireless communications. The concept and tools developed in
wireless communications should be useful to study the PMD-related effects. For the WDM

#7830 - $15.00 USD Received 15 June 2005; revised 1 September 2005; accepted 8 September 2005
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system, the 2x2 model developed in this paper can be extended to more than two inputs and
two outputs for mitigating the linear and nonlinear crosstalk between channels.
The proposed optical polarization MIMO scheme can also be applied to free space and
multimode fiber optical communications.

#7830 - $15.00 USD Received 15 June 2005; revised 1 September 2005; accepted 8 September 2005
(C) 2005 OSA 19 September 2005 / Vol. 13, No. 19 / OPTICS EXPRESS 7534