www.darpa.mil

Ne w Ma t e ria ls a nd De vice s : Mod u la r Op t ica l Ap e rt u re Bu ild ing Blocks (MOABB)

Integrated Optical Phased Arrays for LiDARC. V. Poulton, M. J. Byrd, P. Russo, E. Timurdogan, M. Khandaker, M. Whitson, E. Hosseini, B. Moss, Z. Su, D. Vermeulen and M. R. Watts; Analog Photonics

Optical Phased Arrays (OPA)

Laser Integration

SG-DBR Laser

OPA

Optical train

• Phased arrays are arrays of electro-magnetic antennas with individual phase control

• Tuning the phases allows for arbitrary pattern generation and beam steering

RADAR Phased Array Optical Phased Array

• The high integration of silicon photonics allows for co-packaging with an integrated III/V laser

• Above shows an optical phased array chip co-packaged with a III/V sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) laser

• Optical coupling between the two chips is realized with two ball lenses that performs mode-matching between the two couplers

Silicon Photonics

Free-Space Communication

Silicon photonics is a chip technology enabling optical “circuits” based on laser light guided in silicon optical nanowires.

• 50m free-space data link achieved at a 10Gbps data-rate with two passive optical phased arrays as a transmitter and a receiver

• Active demo of OPA-based free-space communication successful with beam steering between two receivers (1Gbps at 1m)

Active OPAs

Passive OPAs

Program Goal

Long-Range FMCW LiDAR

• Coherent LiDAR demonstrated with OPAs up to almost 200m

• Active OPAs used for raster scanning scene

• The MOABB program aims to create a large integrated flat optical aperture with a 10cm2 area for LIDAR and free-space data communication

• Enables high-power optical beam transmitting and receiving with solid-state beam steering

TX

RX

Chip-scale LiDAR

2D Beam Steering

Applications

Wav

elen

gth

Phase shifters

• 2D beam steering is achieved by utilizing element phase shifters and changing wavelength

• Steering ranges up to 70° x 18° have been demonstrated with pitches down to 1.35um

Automotive

Robotics

Aerial Vehicles

This research was developed with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The views, opinions and/or findings expressed are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Unless otherwise attributed, all images, charts, and diagrams were generated by Analog Photonics.AP CEO: Michael Watts – mwatts@analogphotonics.com | Author: Christopher V. Poulton – cpoulton@analogphotonics.com

Source: Google Images Source: Google Images

Source: Boston DynamicsSource: Boston Dynamics

Source: Google Images Source: Google Images

Source: Google Images

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