PMD tolerant direct-detection polarization division multiplexed OFDM systems with MIMO processing.

This work proposes a novel direct-detection polarization division multiplexed OFDM scheme without the need of dynamic polarization control at a polarization-diverse receiver, and the proposed scheme is robust against polarization mode dispersion. Setting the frequency difference between two polarization-orthogonal reference carriers as one subcarrier spacing, possible signal fading can be avoided, and the corresponding interference from adjacent subcarriers is eliminated by a novel MIMO algorithm. The penalty caused by high channel matrix condition number can be decreased by inserting empty tones among subcarriers, and the polarization-dependent OSNR penalty at the BER of 10⁻³ is <3.6 dB with an empty tone inserted every 8 subcarriers. Moreover, the numerical results demonstrate the 16 × 10³-ps/nm chromatic dispersion and the 300-ps differential group delay will not induce additional penalty.