Broadband polarization pulling using Raman amplification.

The Raman gain based polarization pulling process in a copropagating scheme is investigated. We map the degree of polarization, the angle between the signal and pump output Stokes vectors, the mean signal gain and its standard deviation considering the entire Raman gain bandwidth. We show that, in the undepleted regime (signal input power ~ 1 μW), the degree of polarization is proportional to the pump power and changes with the signal wavelength, following the Raman gain shape. In the depleted regime (signal input power ≳ 1 mW), the highest values for the degree of polarization are no more observed for the highest pump powers. Indeed, we show that exists an optimum pump power leading to a maximum degree of polarization.