Effective half-wavelength pitch optical phased array design for aliasing-free 2D beam steering

We present a method to design an optical phased array (OPA) simultaneously realizing both narrow beam width and aliasing-free 2D beam steering without the need to arrange the antennas at actual half-wavelength pitch. The method realizes an effective half-wavelength pitch in one direction formed by location projection of the antennas. The distances between the antennas in the other direction can be sufficiently large to form an effective large aperture realizing narrow beam width without needing a long grating. The presented method is proven by both theory and numerical simulations to achieve an equivalent grating-lobe-free far field of an ordinary half-wavelength pitch design. One design example exhibits 180 degrees steering with a minimal beam width of 0.4 degrees * 0.032 degrees and a sidelobe suppression ratio of >13 dB. (c) 2022 Optica Publishing Group