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.
We propose tunable grating structures implemented by the change of the effective refractive index based on thermo-optic effect in silicon. For resistive heating, p-i-n or pn junction was formed in the grating region and surrounding region was thermally isolated. Fabricated tunable gratings were characterized by fiber-to-fiber measurement and Fourier-imaging system with a variation of the bias voltage applied to the heater. From a p-i-n type structure showing the best data, we achieved a wide tuning of the central wavelength in a range of 40 nm with an efficiency of 0.41 nm/mW. When this tunable grating structure is applied in the radiator of the optical phased array, the radiation angle was actively manipulated in a range of 2.7° in the longitudinal direction.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a new type of silicon total-internal-reflection (TIR) optical switch by embedding of pn junction providing both function of a reflector and a thermo-optic heater simultaneously. The TIR switch is composed of asymmetrically y-branched multimode waveguides with a waveguide width of 5 μm for a switching node. The incident light is tapered from singlemode waveguides for the fundamental mode propagation and normally reflected without bias at the pn diode based on free carrier plasma dispersion effect. The switching operation is achieved by thermo-optic effect which can compensate the decreased refractive index at the doped region based on reverse breakdown of pn junction. At the rest of switch, extinction ratio of 8 dB and insertion loss of 5.6 dB are achieved with a 3° and 1-μm-thick reflector, By applying -50 V to pn diode, we achieved the perfect switching operation with an extinction ratio of 11.6 dB, an insertion loss of -4.1 dB and a thermal heating power of 152.5 mW.
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