POLARIZATION DISPERSION IN SINGLE-MODE OPTICAL FIBERS - A SIMPLER FORMULATION BASED ON PULSE ENVELOPE PROPAGATION

A new and simpler formulation of the theory of polarization delay and dispersion due to single-mode optical fiber birefringence and coupling is presented. Exploiting its possibilities it is demonstrated that the polarization delay is the maximum delay between pulses injected into the fiber with orthogonal SOPs, and a relationship is found between the dispersion experimented by a pulse and the delay between this pulse and a pulse with the orthogonal SOP.