In-band OSNR monitor with high-speed integrated Stokes polarimeter for polarization division multiplexed signal

An in-band optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitor is proposed, based on an instantaneous polarization state distribution analysis. The proposed monitor is simple, and is applicable to polarization division multiplexed signals. We fabricate a high-speed Stokes polarimeter that integrates a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) based polarization filter, high-speed InP/InGaAs photodiodes and InP hetero-junction bipolar transistor (HBT) trans-impedance amplifiers (TIA). We carry out proof-of-concept experiments with the fabricated polarimeter, and successfully measure the OSNR dependent polarization distribution with 100-Gb/s dual polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK) signals.