Automatic Optical Polarization Demultiplexing for Polarization Division Multiplexed Signals

We propose a new automatic optical polarization demultiplexing scheme for polarization division multiplexed (PDM) signals, which uses the RF power from a low frequency RF power detector as a control signal. This scheme is based on the intrinsic characteristics of PDM signals and does not need to add a special signal at a PDM transmitter. The effectiveness of this demultiplexing method is experimentally demonstrated in a 2×10 Gb/s on-off- keying (OOK) PDM transmission system.