Comparison of polarization-switched QPSK and polarization-multiplexed QPSK at 30 Gbit/s

We present the first experimental results for polarization-switched QPSK (PS-QPSK) and make a comparison with polarization-multiplexed QPSK. Our measurements confirm the predicted sensitivity advantage of PS-QPSK. We have also studied the single channel performance after transmission over 300 km and support the results with numerical simulations. It is shown that the two modulation formats have similar nonlinear tolerance and that optical dispersion compensation outperforms compensation with digital signal processing in the single channel case. Finally, we propose a novel transmitter for PS-QPSK based on an IQ modulator and two amplitude modulators driven in a push-pull configuration