Abstract

Coherent receivers for lightwave systems require that the polarizations of the local oscillator (LO) and received optical signal coincide. This condition can be satisfied despite random fluctuations in the polarization of the received signal, using polarization diversity receivers, in which the two orthogonal polarization components are detected independently on two separate receivers.^1,2 Although this requires a duplication of receiver electronics, the electromechanical problems associated with polarization tracking³ or the sensitivity penalty caused by scrambling the transmitted polarization⁴ are avoided.

© 1988 Optical Society of America