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Over the past several decades, the data-carrying capacity of a single optical fiber have been increased significantly by fully exploring and optimizing physical dimensions of the light. Generally there are five major candidates of dimensions, including time, wavelength, polarization, space and quadrature (phase and amplitude). Multi-dimension, utilizing more than two dimensions of the light simultaneously, is one of the essential characteristics of next generation optical communication systems. We review recent advances in transmission of multi-dimensional signals, and highlight innovative ways of exploring the polarization dimension to further increase the capacity or spectral efficiency of a single optical fiber, a so-called pseudo-polarization-division-multiplexing (PPDM) technique. Related demonstrations include non-orthogonal PDM, PPDM of three and four states (PPDM-3 and PPDM-4). Brief discussions on trends of multi-dimensional signal transmission technologies are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A suppressant effect of wavelength competition for multi-wavelength lasing oscillations is experimentally demonstrated in an ordinary erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The polarization hole burning is exploited by a segment of erbium-doped fiber (EDF) coiled round the plates of the three-loop polarization controller. The mechanism to suppress the wavelength competition is discussed in detail. Results show that the mechanism is helpful to obtain stable multi-wavelength lasing oscillations at room temperature in the EDFL. By properly adjusting the comb filter, three-wavelength and tunable dual-wavelength lasing oscillations have been achieved. The power fluctuation is measured to be less than 0.75dB over 30min for all the multi-wavelength lasing oscillations obtained in the experiment. The 3dB bandwidth of each lasing oscillation is 0.01nm and the 30dB bandwidth is 0.10nm. The side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of the three-wavelength lasing oscillation is more than 45dB and that of the dual-wavelength lasing oscillations is more than 50dB. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Evolution of dual-wavelength fiber laser from continuous wave to soliton pulses is investigated experimentally by using the nonlinear polarization rotation technique. With the increase of pump power, the proposed laser successively delivers the dual-wavelength continuous wave, the single-wavelength soliton pulses, and the dual-wavelength soliton pulses. The dual-wavelength laser operates at the central wavelengths of about 1533 and 1546nm with the separation of ∼13nm. The number of soliton pulses operating in the dual-wavelength state is much larger than that of the single-wavelength state, while the pulse intensity always keeps constant. Experimental results reveal that the dual-wavelength mode locking is determined by the combination of pump strength and the cavity filtering effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We demonstrate a tunable and switchable dual-wavelength passively mode-locked fiber ring laser in the anomalous dispersion regime that generates high-energy pulses at a sub-100kHz repetition rate. The nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) technique is employed in this configuration to allow for passively mode-locked operation. By exploiting the intensity-dependent loss caused by NPR, the mode competition could be efficiently alleviated. Moreover, taking advantage of the intrinsic spectral filter induced by the intracavity birefringence, the dual-wavelength separations as well as the wavelength lasing locations could be flexibly tuned by properly rotating the polarization controller. With a repetition rate of 85.8kHz, the laser delivers the single pulse energy of 198nJ at a pump power of 250mW. The combination of high per-pulse energy and flexible tunability in this fiber laser is useful for practical applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A novel polarizer is designed by liquid filling in partial air-holes of a hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber (PBGF) forming an asymmetric waveguide structure, which leads to the vertical polarization light leaking out while the horizontal polarization light remaining to propagate along the fiber with a relatively low loss. Applied with a full-vector finite-element (FEM) method, a series of polarizer structures with different water-filled regions has been simulated for a better performance on the polarization extinction ratio and the insertion loss. Through optimization, the proposed PBGF polarizer has a high polarization extinction ratio of more than 32dB in the operation wavelength range from 1530nm to 1600nm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Simultaneous wavelength conversion of multichannel polarization shift keying (PolSK) signal using four-wave-mixing in highly non-linear fiber is demonstrated. In the proposed wavelength converter, the wavelengths of four 10-Gb/s polarization shift keying channels are simultaneously converted without any performance degradation for the converted channels. We successfully achieved high conversion performances for all the converted channels even though the input PolSK channels have different delay time and state of polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We demonstrate a multiwavelength fiber laser with ultradense wavelength spacing and ultrabroad bandwidth based on inhomogeneous loss mechanism with assistance of nonlinear polarization rotation. The inhomogeneous loss, implemented by incorporating a section of highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) and a Sagnac filter in the laser cavity, can balance mode competition in erbium-doped fiber and result in ultradense multiwavelength generation. The bandwidth of the multiwavelength spectrum is greatly broadened owing to the intensity-dependent loss induced by nonlinear polarization rotation. Stable multiwavelength lasing with wavelength spacing of 0.08nm and wavelength number up to 254 is achieved at room temperature. Moreover, multiwavelength tuning is realized through modifying polarization-dependent cavity loss. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We report a novel single linearly polarized, widely, freely and continuously tunable two wavelengths -doped fiber laser. The laser generates stable arbitrary two wavelengths output between 1003.1 and 1080.7nm peak wavelengths simultaneously with a 346.0mW CW power by using polarization beam splitting (PBS) for separation of two wavelengths. Each lasing line shows a single polarization with a polarization extinction ratio of >20dB under different pump levels. The central and the interval of the two wavelengths can be tuned smoothly and independently in the entire gain region of >70nm of PM -doped single mode fiber. Strongly enhanced polarization-hole burning (PHB) phenomena in polarization maintain (PM) -doped fiber was observed in the tunable two wavelengths -doped fiber laser. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]