Symmetric signal and local oscillator polarization diverse coherent optical receiver

An improved coherent optical receiver architecture that compensates for a random drift in the state of polarization (SOP) of both the signal and the local oscillator (LO) is presented for the first time. The proposed architecture comprises two conventional coherent optical receiver front-ends in tandem, where the SOP of the LO is first divided into its two orthogonal components and then distributed to each coherent optical receiver front-end module. Two distinct methods of polarization diversity recovery of the modulation based on the MRC technique and an eigenvalue-eigenvector decomposition of the covariance matrix have been used to effectively recover the transmitted signal. The concept is validated by numerical simulations, where a differential quadrature phase-shift keyed (DQPSK) modulated signal with a random time-varying SOP is first generated. After its mixing with a LO also possessing a random time-varying SOP, the algorithms that have been developed are provided with eight input variables to be digitally processed. The constellation diagrams corresponding to the recovered DQPSK modulation obtained using the two polarization diversity methods are presented.