Experimental quantification of soliton robustness to polarization-mode dispersion in dispersion-managed systems

Abstract
We have, for the first time, observed and experimentally quantified the soliton robustness to polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) in a dispersion-managed (DM) fiber link. Long-term measurements were performed in a system where the PMD-characteristics were varying randomly over time. The results show that DM solitons are very robust, at least for low map strengths (0<S<10).