METHOD AND APPPARATUS FOR MEASURING POLARIZATION-MODE DISPERSION

摘要

Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) of an optical device, i.e. fiber or component is effected by launching a first pump laser beam of a fixed wavelength, a probe laser beam with a second fixed wavelength and a second pump laser beam having a variable wavelength and a polarization direction orthogonal to the other two beams into an optical device to generate three output signals which are inpu t into a semiconductor optical amplifier to generate flour-wave mixing (FWM) products . The average PMD of the device is computed by measuring the power of the FWM products versus the wavelength of the second pump laser beam.