We demonstrate high-speed data transmission with beam-steering using an as-fabricated silica optical phased array (OPA) chip. In this OPA, a constant optical path difference was built up in arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) delay lines for allocation of sequential phase delay, which enabled the beam-steering following the wavelength variation. Our designed and fabricated 1x101 silica OPA showed a beam steering of 15.4° by wavelength tuning of 30.37 nm. Using the fabricated silica OPA, 25 Gbps data transmission over a free-space range of 5 m distance was experimentally demonstrated employing an appropriate cylindrical lens, dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) tunable transceiver, and fiber collimator as a receiver. The experimental results showed that free-space data transmission through the silica OPA was successfully achieved with error-free performances regardless of the beam-steering angle.
The light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system is an emerging photonic technology in various applications such as autonomous vehicles, drones, robots, and high-precision 3D imaging. Since conventional LiDAR has employed mechanical beam-steering, the scanning speed is restricted and more power consumption is required. On the other hand, Silicon optical phased array (Si OPA) is a promising solution that can replace the mechanical scanning LiDAR due to the advantages of electrical scanning, small footprint, and low operating power. In this study, we demonstrated a 10 m distance measurement with Si OPA using the time-of-flight (ToF) method. We developed an optical pulse generator for high distance accuracy measurement utilizing an electrical pulse generator, radio frequency amplifier, diplexer, and distributed feedback laser diode to generate an optical output pulse with a 300 ps pulse width. The Si OPA was fabricated using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible processes with an 8-inch silicon-on-insulator wafer. Considering Si chip loss and beam-forming efficiency, the erbium-doped fiber amplifier was used at the front end of the input of Si OPA. An avalanche photodiode that has high speed and sensitivity was utilized as a receiver and the converted optical pulse was observed by a real-time oscilloscope. Using this ToF distance measurement platform, we achieved a 10 m distance measurement with a ranging error of 1.2 cm using Si OPA. Si OPA-based distance measurement platform will allow the realization of 3-dimensional image sensing and further improvement will enable high-accuracy long-distance measurement.
We demonstrate two-dimensional (2-D) beam-steering using only wavelength control from one-dimensional siliconbased OPA, where path differences are sequentially formed in each channel. With 79.6-μm path difference in phasefeeding lines and a 2-μm pitch in grating radiators, we achieved a continuous transversal steering about 46° and a longitudinal steering near 13° with a wavelength tuning of 90 nm. The single-beam with divergence angle of 4° was formed by phase initialization using electro-optic optic p-i-n phase shifters before beam-steering.
Optical phased array (OPA) is considered as promising device in LiDAR application. We implemented a 1x16 silicon OPA consisting of an array of p-i-n electro-optic phase shifters and thermo-optic tunable grating radiators capable of two-dimensional beam-steering. The OPA was fabricated with CMOS-compatible process using SOI wafer. The p-i-n electro-optic phase shifters were formed in OPA channels for transversal beam-steering. With an array pitch of 2 μm, we attained transversal steering up to 45.6° at 1550 nm wavelength. For longitudinal beam-steering, we employed thermo-optic tunable grating radiators with p-i-n junction. The i-region covers whole radiator array and the p- and n-doped regions are placed on the both sides of the radiator array. This structure can provide fairly uniform heating of the radiator region, shifting the overall radiation field in longitudinal direction by the thermo-optic effect. As a result, a longitudinal beam-steering up to 10.3° was achieved by forward-biasing with a power consumption of 178 mW. This result proves a possibility of wide two-dimensional beam-steering with one-dimensional OPA without using tunable light source. We confirmed that the longitudinal tuning range obtained above is corresponding to near 100 nm wavelength tuning. Our device scheme can be a cost-effective solution of the OPA and also be a solution of self-adjustment for fluctuation of the wavelength-dependent performances.
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