Patent ID: 6771910
Filing Date: 2004-08-03
Classification: H04J

Abstract:
A method of generating a polarisation diversity interleaved optical bit stream in which alternate bits have orthogonal polarisation states,in which method first and second plane polarised optical carrier waves are fed in parallel to first and second optical modulators operating at the same bit rate to produce first and second optically plane polarised modulated bit streams, wherein a polarisation beam-splitter/combiner is employed to combine said first and second modulated bit streams to form a combined bit stream with plane polarised bits, and wherein the combined bit stream is launched into a length of birefringent optical fibre waveguide having principal polarisation planes which, at the launch of the combined bit stream into the fibre, are aligned with the polarisation planes of the combined bit stream, which length is such that, at the end remote from the polarisation beam-splitter/combiner, the bits of the combined bit stream that are derived from said first bit stream are interleaved with the bits that are derived from said second bit stream with a predetermined relative timing relationship.