2D Beam Steering Research Articles

Linear 2D Beam Steering With a Large Focusing Grating via Focal Point Movement and Wavelength

We demonstrate a 2D beam-steering device in SiN based on a large focusing grating, achieving a steering range of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.2^\circ \times 46^\circ $ </tex-math></inline-formula> , with discrete steps in azimuth. Despite the curved geometry, it achieves linear raster scanning. It employs only a single SiN layer and a low-resolution full etch.

Solid-state FMCW LiDAR with two-dimensional spectral scanning using a virtually imaged phased array.

The beam-steering device is a critical component in LiDAR systems for 3D imaging. Solid-state beam-steering devices attract the most attention for their advantages of robustness, fast beam-steering speed, and stability. However, solid-state beam-steering devices, such as optical phased arrays (OPAs), are challenging to realize 2D scanning ability. Here we employed a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA) in the LiDAR system to realize all solid-state two-dimensional (2D) beam-steering based on dispersion only. A frequency swept laser source is used for performing optical frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging and 2D beam steering simultaneously. The 2D disperser is compact and can be easily implemented owing to its simple structure. The mechanism of continuous scanning and ranging is beneficial for obtaining high lateral resolution, and a lateral resolution of 0.06° is achieved. 3D maps of the object at a distance of 2 m are obtained with cm-level ranging precision. The frame rate of the proposed LiDAR system only depends on the wavelength-tuning speed of the swept laser source, with the potential to realize ultrafast solid-state LiDAR systems.

Two-Dimensional Digital Beam Steering Based on Liquid Crystal Phase Gratings

Electrically tunable phase gratings are able to steer an incoming light beam without employing movable parts. Here, we present the design and implementation of a 2D beam steering device by cascading two orthogonal 1D liquid crystal (LC) based phase gratings, each having an array of 72 rectangular individually controlled pixels and driven by a custom 12-bit Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) electrical driver. High-resolution structures in glass wafers coated with transparent Indium-Tin Oxide (ITO) have been prepared using Direct Laser Writing (DLW) techniques. With DLW, a high number of pixels can easily be drawn with an interpixel space of less than 3 μm, leading to devices with a high fill factor. The active area of the cascaded device is 1.1 × 1.1 mm2. We present a 72 × 72 point efficiency map corresponding to a maximum diagonal steering angle of 1.65°. Special attention has been paid to make the device compatible with space application by avoiding electronics in the active area.

32 Gbps Data Transmission With 2D Beam-Steering Using a Silicon Optical Phased Array

We demonstrate optical wireless transmission with two-dimensional (2D) beam-steering using an optical phased array (OPA). The OPA consists of 64-elements of electro-optic p-i-n phase shifters and thermo-optic tunable n-i-n grating radiators, employed for 2D beam-steering in the transversal and longitudinal directions. The design of the transmitter and receiver device parameters allowed the error-free transmission of 32 Gbps data over a distance of 3 m. The beam-steering range covered 46.0°/10.2° in the transversal/longitudinal direction with a beam divergence of 0.7°/0.9°. When compared with a transmission over fiber, it was confirmed that free-space transmission through the OPA did not degrade the quality of the tens of Gbps signals.

Wide‐angle 2D beam‐steering with Si‐based 16 × (1 × 16) optical phased arrays

The authors demonstrate integrated 1D optical phased arrays (OPAs) for wide-angle 2D beam-steering. The 2D OPA consists of 16 1D transversal steering OPAs whose radiators have different grating periods, to assign different longitudinal angles. The transversal steering of each OPA is performed by the phase control of the p-i-n electro-optic phase shifter array. The 1D transversal steering OPAs operate serially, changing the longitudinal radiation angle. The grating radiators were designed with an array pitch of 2 μm, and a varying period in the range of 610-710 nm. The entire 16 × (1 × 16) OPAs were integrated into a small area of 26.5 mm 2 . The obtained transversal/longitudinal beam-steering range was 46°/44°, respectively, with a wavelength of 1560 nm, which enables wide 2D beam-steering.

Design of photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers with enhanced in-plane optical feedback for high-speed operation.

Photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) use the two-dimensional (2D) resonance at the band-edge of a photonic crystal for lasing, and they feature various outstanding functionalities such as high-brightness lasing, arbitrary shaping of beam patterns and on-chip 2D beam steering. In this paper, to investigate the applicability of PCSELs for high-speed operation, we design PCSELs with enhanced in-plane optical feedback, which enable single-mode lasing inside a circular region the diameter of which is less than 10 µm. To realize a strong in-plane confinement of the lasing mode, we increase the one-dimensional coupling coefficients between counter-propagating waves through the careful design of the lattice points. We also introduce an in-plane heterostructure composed of two photonic crystals with different photonic bandgaps and utilize reflection at the boundary of the two photonic crystals in addition to the optical feedback at the band-edge of each photonic crystal. By using three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method (3D-FDTD), we confirm that the proposed hetero-PCSELs can achieve single-mode lasing operation inside a 9-µm-diameter and possibly realize a 3-dB modulation bandwidth larger than 40 GHz.

Solid-State MWIR Beam Steering Using Optical Phased Array on Germanium-Silicon Photonic Platform

We demonstrate a chip-scale germanium-silicon optical phased array (OPA) fabricated on a CMOS-compatible platform capable of 2D beam steering in the mid-infrared wavelength range. The OPA included a specially designed grating emitter waveguide array with uniform emission intensity along the mm -length waveguide propagation to realize very sharp instantaneous field-of-view (IFOV) and wide beam-steering total-field-of-view (TFOV). The experimental results indicated lateral beam-steering TFOV up to 12.7° by phase-tuning the waveguide array and longitudinal TFOV up to 12° by wavelength tuning. The 3-dB beam divergence is 3.08° × 0.18°. The demonstrated OPA architecture can employ wafer-scale fabrication and integration while supporting sensing and imaging applications in the mid-infrared spectral range.

Lens-based integrated 2D beam-steering device with defocusing approach and broadband pulse operation for Lidar application.

We propose an integrated two-dimensional beam-steering device based on an on-chip silicon-nitride switch/emitter structure and off-chip lens for light detection and ranging (Lidar) application at 1550 nm. In this device, light is guided by a 1 × 16 switch to one grating emitter in a 4 × 4 grating-emitter array. The beam from the grating emitter is collimated and steered by a fixed lens. By changing the grating emitter that emits light, different beam-steering angle can be achieved. A divergence angle of 0.06° and a field of view of 2.07° × 4.12° in the far field are achieved. The device has O(log2N) power consumption for N emitters, allows digital control and achieves 18 dB background suppression. Blind-zone elimination and broadband operation are also achieved in our lens-based beam-steering device. Therefore, it is suitable for broadband solid-state Lidar application.

Design of high-speed phase-only spatial light modulators with two-dimensional tunable microcavity arrays.

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are central to numerous applications ranging from high-speed displays to adaptive optics, structured illumination microscopy, and holography. After decades of advances, SLM arrays based on liquid crystals can now reach large pixel counts exceeding 106 with phase-only modulation with a pixel pitch of less than 10 µm and reflectance around 75%. However, the rather slow modulation speed in such SLMs (below hundreds of Hz) presents limitations for many applications. Here we propose an SLM architecture that can achieve two-dimensional phase-only modulation at high speed in excess of GHz. The architecture consists of a tunable two-dimensional array of vertically oriented, one-sided microcavities that are tuned through an electro-optic material such as barium titanate (BTO). We calculate that the optimized microcavity design achieves a π phase shift under an applied bias voltage below 10 V, while maintaining nearly constant reflection amplitude. As two model applications, we consider high-speed 2D beam steering as well as beam forming. The outlined design methodology could also benefit future design of spatial light modulators with other specifications (for example amplitude modulators). This high-speed SLM architecture promises a wide range of new applications ranging from fully tunable metasurfaces to optical computing accelerators, high-speed interconnects, true 2D phased array beam steering, and quantum computing with cold atom arrays.

Design and evaluation of a vertically integrated passive two‐dimensional beam switching antenna array at 60 GHz

A millimeter-wave two-dimensional (2D) beam switching planar microstrip patch antenna array excited by a 4 × 4 substrate-integrated waveguide Butler matrix (BM) is presented in this article. The BM architecture is modified to feed the planar array in a vertically integrated multilayer design to minimize parasitic effects due to junction discontinuity and reduce the radio frequency (RF) front-end footprint. This feed architecture enables the designer to control the phased array inputs to achieve a set of beam directions in four quadrants of radiation space at a desired elevation angle. For verification of beam switching via over-the-air measurements at 60 GHz, a bench-top anechoic chamber with proper transmitter and receiver antenna positioners was designed and fabricated using in-house laboratory resources. 2D beam steering was confirmed in the intended four quadrants of radiation space at ϕ0 = 50°, 140°, 220°, and 300° and θ0 = 30° ± 5°, meeting the design specifications with a very good margin. Each switched beam demonstrated between 5 and 6 dBi gain at 60 GHz, which is within 1 dB deviation from the simulated results.

Thermo-optic control of the longitudinal radiation angle in a silicon-based optical phased array.

We demonstrate longitudinal beam-steering with a 1×16 silicon optical phased array (OPA) using a monochromatic light source and thermo-optic control of the refractive index in the grating radiator region. The refractive index is controlled by forming a series of n-i-n heaters, placing i-regions in each radiator of the OPA. When the biased voltage in the heaters is increased, the refractive index of the radiator region is increased by the thermo-optic effect, and the longitudinal radiation angle is changed according to the Bragg condition. The transversal beam-steering is accomplished by phase control with the phase shifters, which are devised with a p-i-n diode using the electro-optic effect. With these electro-optic p-i-n phase shifters and n-i-n thermo-optic radiators, we achieve a relatively wide 2D beam-steering in a range of 10.0°/45.4° in the longitudinal/transversal directions with a 1.55μm light source. The tuning efficiency is 0.016°/mW in the longitudinal beam-steering.

40 Gb/s indoor optical wireless system enabled by a cyclically arranged optical beamsteering receiver.

Indoor optical wireless communication with optical beamsteering capability is currently attracting a lot of attention. One major two-dimensional (2D) optical beamsteering scheme is realized by 2D grating or its active counterpart, which is usually based on a spatial light modulator (SLM). However, there is a fundamental trade-off between the field of view (FoV) and power efficiency due to the inherent feature of gratings. In this Letter, we propose a new class of 2D beamsteering, named cyclically arranged optical beamsteering (CAO-BS), which can break that trade-off. Traditional 2D gratings extend the optical beam in the Cartesian coordinates (1D grating in horizontal + 1D grating in vertical), while CAO-BS extends the optical beam in the polar coordinates (1D grating + angular rotation). Since only 1D grating is engaged, the power efficiency increases with the number of grating lobes reduced. In the polar coordinates, the angle rotation tuning in a SLM is quasi-continuous in a full 2π range. The CAO-BS is demonstrated at the receiving end in an indoor experimental system. The FoV is 18° by 360° in polar coordinates without any additional mechanical parts. Based on the CAO-BS, 40Gbit/s on-off keying data is also successfully transmitted over 1km single-mode fiber and 0.5m free space.

Dynamic Orthogonal Switching of a Thermoresponsive Self-Organized Helical Superstructure.

Controllable manipulation of self-organized dynamic superstructures of functional molecular materials by external stimuli is an enabling enterprise. Herein, we have developed a thermally driven, self-organized helical superstructure, i.e., thermoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC), by integrating a judiciously chosen thermoresponsive chiral molecular switch into an achiral liquid crystalline medium. The CLC in lying state, in both planar and twisted nematic cells, exhibits reversible in-plane orthogonal switching of its helical axis in response to the combined effect of temperature and electric field. Consequently, the direction of the cholesteric grating has been observed to undergo 90° switching in a single cell, enabling non-mechanical beam steering along two orthogonal directions. The ability to reversibly switch the cholesteric gartings along perpendicular directions by appropriately adjusting temperature and electric field strength could facilitate their applications in 2D beam steering, spectrum scanning, optoelectronics and beyond.

Polarization-independent two-dimensional beam steering using liquid crystal optical phased arrays

A polarization-independent nonmechanical laser beam steering scheme is proposed to realize continuous two-dimensional (2D) scanning with high efficiency, where the core components are two polarization-dependent devices, which are called liquid crystal optical phased arrays (LC-OPAs). These two one-dimensional (1D) devices are orthogonally cascaded to work on the state of azimuthal and elevation steering, respectively. Properties of polarization independence as well as 2D beam steering are mathematically and experimentally verified with a good agreement. Based on the experimental setup, linearly polarized beams with different polarization angles are steered with high accuracy. The measured angular deviations are less than 5 μrad, which is on the same order of the accuracy of the measurement system. This polarization-independent 2D laser beam steering scheme has potential application for nonmechanical laser communication, lidar, and other LC-based systems.

Tunable two dimensional optical beam steering with reconfigurable indium tin oxide plasmonic reflectarray metasurface

In this paper, an electrically tunable reflectarray metasurface for two dimensional (2D) beam steering is designed by integration of a thin layer of indium tin oxide (ITO) material into a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic unit-cell. The reflectarray is composed of square-shaped patch nanoantennas placed on a stack of insulator-ITO-metallic ground plane. The resonant characteristic of unit-cell and the accumulation of carrier density at the interface of ITO-insulator play key roles in obtaining over 250° of phase agility at around 218 terahertz (THz), by electrically varying the bias voltage. An array of unit-cells with integrated ITO and 2D voltage biasing distribution (from the side) offer the possibility of designing a reconfigurable antenna in which the main beam can be steered to relatively large angles in both θ- and φ- planes at carefully selected operating frequency. The significant advantage of this design is the dynamically adjustable radiation pattern in both azimuth and elevation planes even after fabrication.

Wide-angle nonmechanical beam steering using liquid lenses.

Nonmechanical beam steering is a rapidly growing branch of adaptive optics with applications such as light detection and ranging, imaging, optical communications, and atomic physics. Here, we present an innovative technique for one- and two-dimensional beam steering using multiple tunable liquid lenses. We use an approach in which one lens controls the spot divergence, and one to two decentered lenses act as prisms and steer the beam. Continuous 1D beam steering was demonstrated, achieving steering angles of ±39° using two tunable liquid lenses. The beam scanning angle was further enhanced to ±75° using a fisheye lens. By adding a third tunable liquid lens, we achieved 2D beam steering of ±75°. In this approach, the divergence of the scanning beam is controlled at all steering angles.

Compact optical true time delay beamformer for a 2D phased array antenna using tunable dispersive elements.

A hardware-compressive optical true time delay architecture for 2D beam steering in a planar phased array antenna is proposed using fiber-Bragg-grating-based tunable dispersive elements (TDEs). For an M×N array, the proposed system utilizes N TDEs and M wavelength-fixed optical carriers to control the time delays. Both azimuth and elevation beam steering are realized by programming the settings of the TDEs. An experiment is carried out to demonstrate the delay controlling in a 2×2 array, which is fed by a wideband pulsed signal. Radiation patterns calculated from the experimentally measured waveforms at the four antennas match well with the theoretical results.

Free-space transmission with passive 2D beam steering for multi-gigabit-per-second per-beam indoor optical wireless networks.

In order to circumvent radio spectrum congestion, we propose an innovative system which can provide multiple infrared optical wireless beams simultaneously where each beam supports multi-gigabit-per-second communication. Scalable two-dimensional beam steering by means of wavelength tuning is proposed. A passive beam-steering module constructed with cascaded reflection gratings is designed for simultaneous multi-user coverage. We experimentally characterized the beam-steered system and thoroughly evaluated the performance of steered channels using the spectrally efficient and robust discrete multitone modulation in a bandwidth-limited system deploying 10 GHz telecom transceivers. This study reports the achievement of at least 37 Gbps free-space transmission per beam over a distance of up to 2 m over 5.61° × 12.66° scanning angles.

Small phase pattern 2D beam steering and a single LCOS design of 40 1 × 12 stacked wavelength selective switches.

Two-dimensional beam steering by small, square, phase patterns as small as 50 × 50 pixels on a phase-only liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) device is experimentally verified as suitable for the application of wavelength selective switches (WSSs), in terms of the diffraction efficiency and steering accuracy. This enables a proposed highly functional and versatile stacked switch architecture, where 40 independent 1 × 12 WSSs can be realised on a single 4k LCOS device. They can be configured to support a 1 × N WSSs with N≤144, or an N × N wavelength crossconnect with N≤12.

Slow-light Bragg reflector waveguide array for two-dimensional beam steering

We propose and demonstrate a slow-light Bragg reflector waveguide array for two-dimensional (2D) beam steering. The device consists of a highly dispersive Bragg reflector waveguide array with a quarter-wavelength stack semiconductor mirrors and a Y-branch 1 × 4 splitter with a branching angle of 30°. The beam steering characteristics in the two orthogonal directions are clarified by tuning the input wavelength. Beam steering was demonstrated using wavelength tuning with the assistance of delay sections. The results show the possibility of 2D beam steering using the Bragg reflector waveguide array by combining wavelength tuning and thermo-optic phase tuning.