Intensive and Efficient Design of a Two-dimensional 8 × 8 Silicon-Based Optical Phased Array Transceiver

Sensors (Basel). 2023 Nov 25;23(23):9396. doi: 10.3390/s23239396.

Abstract

In recent years, the silicon-based optical phased array has been widely used in the field of light detection and ranging (LIDAR) due to its great solid-state steering ability. At the same time, the optical phased array transceiver integration scheme provides a feasible solution for low-cost information exchange of small devices in the future. Based on this, this paper designs a two-dimensional optical phased array transceiver with high efficiency and a large field of view, which can realize a dense array with antenna spacing of 5.5 μm × 5.5 μm by using low crosstalk waveguide wiring. Additionally, it can realize the conversion between the receiving mode and the transmitting mode by using the optical switch. The simulation results show that the scanning range of 16.3° × 16.3° can be achieved in the transmitting mode, and the overall loss is lower than 10dB. In the receiving mode, we can achieve a collection efficiency of more than 27%, and the antenna array receiving loss is lower than 12.1 dB.

Keywords: beam steering; optical phased array; photonic device design; silicon photonic platform; transceiver integration.