Polarization-division and spatial-division shared-aperture nanopatch antenna arrays for wide-angle optical beam scanning.

Abstract

Chip-based optical beam scanners hold promise for future compact high-speed light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems. Many of the demonstrated chip-based optical beam scanners are designed based on diffraction-based waveguide gratings as on-chip antennas. The waveguide grating antenna, however, only provides a typical field-of-view (FOV) of roughly 10° by tuning the input light wavelength. In this paper, polarization-division and spatial-division multiplexed nanoantenna arrays are proposed to expand the FOV of on-chip antennas. The proposed device, based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform, consists of three nanoantenna groups which are densely packed and fed by a common silicon nanostrip. It is demonstrated that the combination of the optical mode-multiplexing technique and the antenna engineering allows independent controls over the interactions between multiple nanoantenna groups and the waveguide. By proper engineering of the antenna dimensions, the proposed device achieves a FOV of over 40° within a 100 nm wavelength tuning range, almost tripling that of the conventional waveguide grating antenna.