Systems and methods in an optical network

An optical transmitter in an optical network, comprising:

• an encoder configured to receive an input data stream and to encode the input data stream into a signal, the signal being defined as a sequence of frames, the encoder also configured to perform interleaving on the input data stream in respective interleaving windows, each interleaving window being longer than a length of each frame;
• and
• a rotator configured to receive each frame of the signal and to output, for a given input frame with an input state of polarization (SOP), a respective given output frame associated with one output SOP, the output SOP of the given output frame being different from a corresponding output SOP of at least one other output frame that is immediately adjacent to the given output frame;
• an electrical-optical converter configured to convert the output frames of the signal into an optical signal, wherein the output SOPs of output frames of the signal are optical properties of the optical signal.