Optimum length of one-stage polarization-mode dispersion compensators with a fixed delay line

We investigate the performance of the one-stage polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) compensator with a fixed delay line. We find that there exists an optimum delay line length for the PMD compensator and the optimum delay line length decreases with the increase of signal bandwidths. We show that such PMD compensators, when optimized, can achieve almost the same performance as that achieved by those with a variable delay line.