Abstract
Polarization dependence of stimulated Raman scattering is a fundamental physical effect, which influences the design and application of Raman amplifiers for optical networks. We report experimental data of the study of polarization dependence of Raman gain in dispersion compensating fibres (DCF). The investigation displays a strong variation of the polarization dependence of Raman gain versus average polarization mode dispersion (PMD) values of DCF for both co-propagating and counter-propagating pump configurations. The reported data show, for the first time to our knowledge, that, for large PMD values, such a dependence may be as small as to be comparable with the accuracy of the measurements. The results of the study may be used to simplify the design of Raman amplifiers to avoid depolarization of pump sources that are currently used to decrease polarization dependence of Raman gain.