Silicon Optical Phased Array with High-Efficiency Beam Formation over 180 Degree Field of View

Abstract

Chip-scale optical phased arrays could enable compact beam steering and LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, precision robotics, and free-space optical communications. Because these applications demand wide angle beam steering as well as high optical power in the output beam, a natural design choice would be to space the array emitters at a half-wavelength pitch, as is common in radiofrequency phased arrays. Optical phased arrays, however, unlike RF phased arrays, have been limited by the tradeoff between field of view (i.e. angle steering) and beamforming efficiency (i.e. optical power in the output beam). This tradeoff exists because optical phased arrays rely on waveguides as emitters, which suffer from strong crosstalk when placed in close proximity relative to their mode size. Here we overcome these limitations and demonstrate a platform for optical phased arrays with 180° field of view, where more than 72 percent of the power is carried in a single diffraction-limited beam even when steered up to 60° off-axis. Our platform leverages high index-contrast, dispersion-engineered waveguides spaced one half-wavelength apart without incurring crosstalk.