High contrast polymer waveguide for improving the beam scanning speed of polymer waveguide optical phased array

Abstract

Optical phased array (OPA) beam scanners consisting of polymer waveguides have demonstrated precise beam steering with low driving power by taking advantage of the large TO coefficient of the polymer material. However, the slow response time of thermo-optic phase modulators limits the beam scanning time, and it has to be improved for the practical LiDAR application. In this study, a polyimide with a high refractive index is adopted to produce a waveguide with a small waveguide core size to reduce the response time of the thermo-optic phase modulator and improve the beam scanning speed of the OPA device.