ECOC12-RSOAwith2FRs

The polarization management capabilities of an optical retracing circuit defined by a Faraday rotator and a Faraday rotator mirror are exploited to make a RSOA-based self-tuning transmitter polarization insensitive. Circuit operation is analysed exploiting Poincarè sphere representation. BER curves demonstrate operation up to 10 Gb/s. Introduction Major issue with RSOA-based self-seeded architecture is polarization evolution within the optical circuit, which is established between the optical reflector at the remote node and the mirror at the RSOA, place at the ONU. The distribution fibre, which connects the ONU and the RN AWG can presents length from a hundred of meters to a few kilometres. The unavoidable birefringence of the fiber modifies in an unpredictable manner the State of polarization (SOP) of the signal returning to the RSOA after the remote mirror reflection and the transit into the AWG. Recently this problem has been solved for 1,2 low-PDG RSOA exploiting the properties of the Faraday rotator mirror, known as the 3,4 universal time-reversal operator , which ensures that the SOP of the signal re-injected in the RSOA is aligned orthogonally to the signal which has been emitted by the RSOA itself. Under the condition of a low PDG, the operation of a WDM PON based on a network-embedded 2 self-tuning cavity at 1.25 Gb/s over 32 channels has been demonstrated. In this paper we focus on the more general case of high PDG RSOAs and presents the operation of a more general optical circuit up to 10 Gb/s, guarantying polarization insensitive operation of RSOA-based self-tuning transmitter for WDMPON.