Characterization of phase in vector measurements of stochastic fields

Traditionally, the phase of an ideal complex circular random electromagnetic fields is modelled by a uniform distribution. We show that the phase of the Cartesian component of a more general complex elliptic random field exhibits a distribution that depends on the I/Q noncircularity coefficient and the I/Q correlation coefficient. Theoretical distributions are derived and validated experimentally, based on measurements in a mode-tuned reverberation chamber using a vector network analyzer.