Schemes for complete compensation for polarization mode dispersion up to second order.

The required structure and elements of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) compensators for complete second-order compensation are investigated by use of a general PMD vector formalism of concatenated PMD elements based on Mueller matrices and Stokes vectors. The investigation shows that two- and three-stage compensators with five independent parameters can compensate for polarization-dependent chromatic dispersion as well as the depolarization component of second-order PMD.