Polarization mode dispersion and chromatic dispersion compensation by using a three-stage compensator

A three-stage compensator used for Polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and Chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation is proposed. The compensator is capable of compensating the two components of second-order PMD when no CD exists. Two operating points of compensating second-order PMD have been proposed. Two-stage and three-stage compensators are compared by the outage probability. When CD is introduced, the compensator should retain a quantity of second-order PMD to compensate CD. The outage probability when PMD and CD coexist has been calculated. The results show that a tradeoff must be made in order to compensate CD and PMD at the same time.