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An optical phase standard includes a coupler dividing an applied optical signal between a measurement interferometer and a frequency reference branch. Resulting signals at the outputs of the measurement interferometer and the frequency reference branch are sampled. The samples acquired at the outpu

An optical phase standard includes a coupler dividing an applied optical signal between a measurement interferometer and a frequency reference branch. Resulting signals at the outputs of the measurement interferometer and the frequency reference branch are sampled. The samples acquired at the output of the frequency reference branch are mapped to optical frequencies that are traceable to a frequency standard provided by an absorption cell. This mapping determines the optical frequencies at which the samples acquired are at the output of the measurement interferometer. From the acquired samples at the output of the measurement interferometer, phase characteristics of a device under test (DUT) are extracted. Aspects of the optical phase standard are alternatively implemented according to an optical phase standardization method.

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The invention claimed is: 1. An optical phase standard, comprising: a measurement interferometer including a measurement path and a reference path coupled between a splitter and a combiner; a frequency reference branch including an interferometer cascaded with an absorption cell; and a coupler havi

The invention claimed is: 1. An optical phase standard, comprising: a measurement interferometer including a measurement path and a reference path coupled between a splitter and a combiner; a frequency reference branch including an interferometer cascaded with an absorption cell; and a coupler having an input, a first output coupled to the measurement interferometer, and a second output coupled to the frequency reference branch. 2. The optical phase standard of claim 1 wherein the frequency reference branch provides a composite signal in response to an optical signal applied to the input of the coupler, the composite signal including a superposition of a cyclical fringe signal and a series of absorption lines. 3. The optical phase standard of claim 2 wherein the measurement interferometer provides a cyclical interference pattern representing phase characteristics of a DUT relative to the reference path in response to one or more frequency sweeps of an optical signal provided by a tuneable optical source. 4. The optical phase standard of claim 3 wherein an output of the measurement interferometer is coupled to a first amplitude detector acquiring samples of the interference pattern, and an output of the frequency reference branch is coupled to a second amplitude detector acquiring samples of the composite signal, the samples acquired by the first amplitude detector and the second amplitude detector being simultaneously acquired. 5. An optical phase standard, comprising: a measurement interferometer including a measurement path configurable for normalizing and for measurement of a device under test (DUT), and a reference path coupled between a splitter and a combiner; a frequency reference branch including an interferometer cascaded with an absorption cell; and a coupler having an input, a first output coupled to the measurement interferometer, and a second output coupled to the frequency reference branch. 6. The optical phase standard of claim 5 wherein the frequency reference branch provides a composite signal in response to an optical signal applied to the input of the coupler, the composite signal including a superposition of a cyclical fringe signal and a series of absorption lines. 7. The optical phase standard of claim 5 wherein the measurement interferometer provides a cyclical interference pattern representing phase characteristics of the DUT relative to the reference path in response to one or more frequency sweeps of an optical signal provided by a tuneable optical source. 8. The optical phase standard of claim 6 wherein the measurement interferometer provides a cyclical interference pattern representing phase characteristics of the DUT relative to the reference path in response to one or more frequency sweeps of an optical signal provided by a tuneable optical source. 9. The optical phase standard of claim 8 wherein an output of the measurement interferometer is coupled to a first amplitude detector acquiring samples of the interference pattern, and an output of the frequency reference branch is coupled to a second amplitude detector acquiring samples of the composite signal, the samples acquired by the first amplitude detector and the second amplitude detector being simultaneously acquired. 10. An optical phase standard, comprising: a measurement interferometer including a DUT path and a reference path coupled between a splitter and a combiner; a frequency reference branch; and a coupler having an input receiving one or more frequency sweeps of an optical signal, a first output coupled to the measurement interferometer, and a second output coupled to the frequency reference branch, the measurement interferometer providing an interference pattern in response to the optical signal and the frequency reference branch providing a composite signal in response to the optical signal. 11. The optical phase standard of claim 10 wherein the composite signal includes a superposition of a cyclical fringe signal and a series of absorption lines. 12. The optical phase standard of claim 11 wherein the interference pattern represents relative phase differences introduced between the DUT path and the reference path. 13. The optical phase standard of claim 10 wherein the interference pattern represents relative phase differences introduced between the DUT path and the reference path. 14. The optical phase standard of claim 10 wherein an output of the measurement interferometer is coupled to a first amplitude detector and an output of the frequency reference branch is coupled to a second amplitude detector. 15. An optical phase standardization method, comprising: dividing an optical signal between a measurement interferometer and a frequency reference branch; providing a composite signal that includes a superposition of a cyclical fringe signal and a series of absorption lines at an output of the frequency reference branch in response to the optical signal; providing an interference pattern representing phase characteristics of a DUT at an output of the measurement interferometer in response to the optical signal; simultaneously sampling the composite signal and the interference pattern; mapping corresponding optical frequencies to sample positions of the samples of the composite signal based on a determined number of cycles of the fringe signal and identified optical frequencies of predesignated absorption lines in the series; and using the mapping to extract the phase characteristics of the DUT versus optical frequency. 16. The optical phase standardization method of claim 15 wherein providing the interference pattern representing phase characteristics of a DUT includes subtracting a first phase characteristic in a normalizing configuration of the measurement interferometer from a second phase characteristic in a measurement configuration of the measurement interferometer.