Circular Optical Phased Array with Large Steering Range and High Resolution

Light detection and ranging systems based on optical phased arrays and integrated silicon photonics have sparked a surge of applications over the recent years. This includes applications in sensing, free-space communications, or autonomous vehicles, to name a few. Herein, we report a design of two-dimensional optical phased arrays, which are arranged in a grid of concentric rings. We numerically investigate two designs composed of 110 and 820 elements, respectively. Both single-wavelength (1550 nm) and broadband multi-wavelength (1535 nm to 1565 nm) operations are studied. The proposed phased arrays enable free-space beam steering, offering improved performance with narrow beam divergences of only 0.5° and 0.22° for the 110-element and 820-element arrays, respectively, with a main-to-sidelobe suppression ratio higher than 10 dB. The circular array topology also allows large element spacing far beyond the sub-wavelength-scaled limits that are present in one-dimensional linear or two-dimensional rectangular arrays. Under a single-wavelength operation, a solid-angle steering between 0.21π sr and 0.51π sr is obtained for 110- and 820-element arrays, respectively, while the beam steering spans the range of 0.24π sr and 0.57π sr for a multi-wavelength operation. This work opens new opportunities for future optical phased arrays in on-chip photonic applications, in which fast, high-resolution, and broadband beam steering is necessary.