Data Transmission through Polarization Domain
Walls in standard Telecom Optical Fibers
M. Gilles, P.-Y. Bony, M. Guasoni, A. Picozzi and J. Fatome
AbstractWe report the generation and propaga-
tion of polarization domain walls in a standard Telecom
optical fiber in the normal dispersion regime. These
vectorial structures are then implemented in order to
transmit optical data at 1550 nm at a 10 GBits/s and
40 GBits/s bit-rate.
Keywordsoptical fiber, nonlinear optics, polariza-
tion.
I. Introduction
It is well known that the nonlinear Kerr effect in fiber
optics can compensate chromatic dispersion, specifically
in the anormal dispersion regime thanks to Self-Phase
Modulation (SPM). The most famous example of this
equilibrium is the soliton sech associated to the Nonlinear
Schrdinger scalar equation (NLSE). The direct extension
of this equation comes from its vectorial form in which the
orthogonal polarizations are incoherently coupled through
Cross-Phase Modulation (CPM). In this particular case,
when the CPM effect is superior to the SPM, Berkhoer
and Zakharov showed that polarization modulational in-
stability could arise in the normal dispersion regime. The
CPM can then compensate the dispersion effects allowing
the propagation of localized energy between adjacent po-
larization regions [1].
These verctorial solutions, called polarization domain
wall solitons were theoretically decribed 20 years ago
by M. Haelterman in isotropic optical fibers for which
the CPM/SPM ratio is 2, and correspond to kink type
localized structures for which the electric field swicthes
between two orthogonal polarization states [2]. We can
then imagine transimitting data by coding not the inten-
sity, but the polarization of the incident wave by switching
towards an orthogonal state of polarization for each bits
transition 1-0 or 0-1. Although the existence of PDWs
was demonstrated in 1999 thanks to a PMI experiment
in a 2-meters long isotropic spun optical fiber [3], the
solitonic nature of those structures during their propa-
gation was then forbidden by the nonlinear Fermi-Pasta
Ulam reccurence imposed by the modulation instability
process [4]. Moreover, an optical telecommunication fiber
is characterised by a residual random birefringence making
it non-isotripic. For long propagation lengths, typically, a
few kilometers, this stochastic anisotropy can be averaged
so that the optical fiber can be modeled by the coupled
Manakov equations system [5]. In this theoretical model,
the CPM/SPM ratio goes down to 1, forbbiding the ex-
istence of domain wall vectorial structures. However in
this contribution, we report for the first time the existence
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2015
c IEEE
CP2
CP1
Laser M MI WS PBS
CP3
GBF PPG
10 GHz
TWHD
CP4 EDFA
2 1
Oscillo 70 GHz PBS
3
Fig. 1. Experimental setup. GBF: Low Frequency Generator, WS:
WaveShaper, EDFA: Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier, CPx : Polariza-
tion controller.
and propagation of polarization domain walls solitons in a
standard Telecom optical fiber of kilometers length and the
first 10 and 40 Gbits/s polarization domain walls encoded
optical data transmission.
II. Observation of domain walls solitons
The first step consists in generating polarization do-
main wall solitons. For this, we use the experimental setup
represented on Figure 1. A continous wave centered at
1550 nm is phase modulated (M) to avoid stimulated
Brillouin scattering. A 35 ps Full-Width Half-Maximum
(FWHW) super-gaussian shaped pulse train is then gen-
erated at a rate of 14 GHz (cyclic ratio 1 : 2) thanks to an
intensity modulator (MI) driven by a 28 GBits/s rate Pulse
Pattern Generator (PPG) shaping a simple 1-0 switching.
This signal is then divided in two replicas, one of which is
half-period delayed to obtain a complementary temporal
signal. Those two replicas are then polarization multi-
plexed through a Polarization Beam Splitter (PBS) before
being amplified and injected in a 10 km long optical fiber.
The optical fiber is a standard product from ofs (TW-
HD) of parameters D = 15 ps nm1 km1 at 1550 nm,
= 2.3 W1 km1 , = 0.2 dBm, P M D = 0.02 ps km1/2 .
At the fiber output, the signals are demultiplexed using
a second PBS before detection on an electrical sampling
oscilloscope. Figures 2a and 2b illustrate the intensity
profiles at fiber output as a function of the input aver-
age power. When a single wave propagates (scalar case
Figure 2a), the signal is highly degraded by the combined
effects of chromatic dispersion and self-phase modulation,
and evolves towards a complex periodic pattern. On the
other hand, when both waves of orthogonal polarizations

Fig. 2. (a)-(b)Intensity profiles at fiber output vs average injected
power (a) Scalar case, a single polarization component is propagating
(b) Polarization domain wall solitons.
are simultaneously injected, (Figure 2b), the cross-phase
modulation binds the two signals by their rising and falling
edges, then trapping the energy contained in each polar-
ization domain.The intensity profiles on each polarization
component are then conserved, demonstrating the strength
of the domain wall solitons during their propagation.
III. Domain wall data transmission
In order to demonstrate the potential of domain walls,
we then transmitted optical data through this process.
Indeed, as the domain wall soliton is only defined by the
polarization transition (kink soliton), the domain width
has theoretically no influence on the propagation, only
the rising and falling edges define these vectorial struc-
tures. Consequently, it is possible to encode them. In
order to generate those vectorial structures, we used the
emission setup represented in Figure 3. As the signal is
no longer periodic as in the previous section, a delayed
replica is not enough to generated the complementary
signal anymore. We then set up a device including 2
intensity modulators fed respectively by data and data,
temporally synchronized then polarization multiplexed.
To illustrate the principle, the transmitted pattern here
is a 40 bits sequence with a 10 GBits/s bitrate repre-
senting the ASCII code of the PETAL project acronym:
0101000001000101010101000100000101001100. This pat-
tern is injected in a first 25 km TWHD fiber before being
reamplified and injected in a second 25 km long fiber spool.
Figure 4a illustrates the PETAL sequence after 50 km
of propagation as a function of the power when one of both
waves propagates. In this case, we clearly observe a strong
signal degradation, mainly due to combined effects of the
chromatic dispersion in the normal dispersion regime and
the self-phase modulation, up until total loss of the data. In
a second part, when both waves propagate simultaneously
Fig. 3. Experimental setup
Fig. 4. (a)-(b) Temporal profile evolution of the 10 GBits/s PETAL
sequence after 50 km vs average power (a) scalar case (b) PDWs (c)-
(d) Eye diagrams 40 GBits/s after a 5 km long fiber and a average
power of 29 dBm (c) Scalar case (d) PDWs.
(Figure 4b), the 50 km propagated PETAL pattern obser-
vation shows clearly the process efficiency. The induced
CPM on the ajacent edges then bind both waves on the
transitions parts, thus preserving polarization domains
of any degradation. The PETAL sequence is perfectly
conserved thus demonstrating the capacity of domain wall
solitons to be encoded. A similar experiment was done at
40 GBits/s, with a pseudo-random sequence propagating
on 5 km with a mean power of 29 dBm and also proves the
strength of PWDs (eye diagrams Figure 4c-d).
IV. Conclusion
Almost 20 years after the theoretical description of po-
larization domain wall solitons, we report the experimental
proof of their existence and of the solitonic characteristic
of those kink structures in a standard Telecom optical
fiber in the normal dispersion regime. We demonstrated
that those domain walls could be used to transmit high
bitrate optical data in the normal dispersion and highly
nonlinear regime thanks to the interaction strength of the
cross-phase modulation. Those results show that the light
polarization can be thought as a new degree of freedom to
encode optical information, and open the question of the
validity of the Manakov model for high quality standard
optical fibers currently being manufactured. Finally, these
results might be applied for data or short high power pulse
transmissions in the normal dispersion regime.

V. Acknowledgements
This work is financed by the European Union in the
context of the ERC starting grant PETAL, FP7 Agreement
n 306633.

VI. References
References
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with Different Polarizations in Nonlinear Media. Zh. Eksp. Teor.
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98, janvier 1994.
[3] F. Gutty, S. Pitois, P. Grelu, G. Millot, M. D. Thomson
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