We present an 1x16 silicon optical phased array (OPA) based on an electro-optic phase shifter that enables low power consumption and high speed operation. The phase shifter operates by carrier injection based on the p-i-n structure and is designed to optimize the width between doped regions to 2.5 μm. Phase tuning efficiency of 1.7 mW/π and operating speed of 20 MHz were measured from fabricated devices. The difference between the measured values and the values calculated in the simulation was analyzed through additional simulations to indicate that the error occurred in the actual fabrication. In addition, transversal beam steering was achieved in the range of 45° and the average power of 39.6 mW was consumed for phase tuning for each radiation beam.
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.
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