Polarization attraction of 10-Gb/s NRZ-BPSK signal in a highly nonlinear fiber

Polarization attraction of a 10-Gb/s non-return-to-zero binary phase-shift keyed (NRZ-BPSK) signal has been successfully demonstrated for the first time in a counter-propagating beam configuration using a continuous-wave pump, in a highly nonlinear fiber, by utilizing the Kerr nonlinear cross-polarization process inherent to that fiber. The efficacy of mitigating polarization-dependent loss across polarization-sensitive devices was emulated with a linear polarizer located before the receiver. The receiver sensitivity penalty at 10^-9 bit-error-rate relative to the baseline NRZ-BPSK signal was < 0.5 dB, when polarization attraction was employed for a polarization-scrambled signal (after achieving a degree of polarization > 90%). The results confirm that polarization attraction is independent of modulation format.