  When elliptically polarized maximally entangled states are considered, i.e.,
states having a non random phase factor between the two bipartite polarization
components, the standard settings used for optimal violation of Bell
inequalities are no longer adapted. One way to retrieve the maximal amount of
violation is to compensate for this phase while keeping the standard Bell
inequality analysis settings. We propose in this paper a general theoretical
approach that allows determining and adjusting the phase of elliptically
polarized maximally entangled states in order to optimize the violation of Bell
inequalities. The formalism is also applied to several suggested experimental
phase compensation schemes. In order to emphasize the simplicity and relevance
of our approach, we also describe an experimental implementation using a
standard Soleil-Babinet phase compensator. This device is employed to correct
the phase that appears in the maximally entangled state generated from a
type-II nonlinear photon-pair source after the photons are created and
distributed over fiber channels.
