Patent ID: 8213795

Claim:
A method of polarization-time coding in an optical communication device, the method comprising: receiving, at a polarization-time encoder in the optical communication device, a first input pair containing d 1 , d 2 indicating a first polarization state and a second input pair containing d 3 , d 4 indicating a second polarization state; transforming, at the polarization-time encoder in the optical communication device, each input pair according to a matrix to produce four output pairs comprising a first output pair containing d 1 , −d 2 *, a second output pair containing d 2 , d 1 *, a third output pair containing d 3 , −d 4 *, and a fourth output pair containing d 4 , d 3 *; transmitting, by an optical transceiver in the optical communication device, at a first time the first output pair containing d 1 , −d 2 * using the first polarization state and the third output pair containing d 3 , −d 4 * using the second polarization state; and transmitting, by the optical transceiver in the optical communication device, at a second time the second output pair containing d 2 , d 1 * using the first polarization state and the fourth output pair containing d 4 , d 3 * using the second polarization state.