Highly Compact All-Solid-State Beam Steering Module Based on a Metafiber

Abstract

Optical phased arrays occupy the predominant position in the solid-state light detection and ranging; however, their applications are limited by high insertion loss, complex control, and the need for tunable lasers. Here, by assembling a quadratic silicon metalens onto the end face of a single-mode fiber array to form a metafiber, we propose an all-solid-state beam steering module. With the introduction of the flat metalens, the module is highly compact, and the field of view may be extremely wide. A large field of view up to about 60° is testified experimentally based on a one-dimensional module. The application for parking space monitoring is also demonstrated based on a two-dimensional module. The beam steering module can be switched between the scanning mode and the flash mode compatibly and can also be extended to a larger scale with a higher scanning precision by increasing the size of the fiber array and scaling the metalens. The presented scheme featured with high compactness, high performance, and good compatibility provides a distinctive beam steering candidate for light detection and ranging or optical wireless communication applications.