Effect of the position of a highly birefringent fiber segment on the total PMD of a fiber link

Abstract

PMD is regarded one of the main impairments in optical fibers due to the pulse broadening that it induces causing limitations in range and quality. It is well known that PMD may arise from a very bad section within a long fiber due to some external forces such as torsion, bending, etc. This work investigates the effect of the position of a bad fiber within a long link; the bad fiber is investigated in three places, at the beginning, the middle and the end of the fiber link.