TY - JOUR
T1 - Aperture scalable liquid crystal optically duplicated array of phased array
AU - He, Xiaoxian
AU - Wang, Xiangru
AU - Wu, Liang
AU - Liu, Xiaopeng
AU - Guo, Hongru
AU - Huang, Xinning
AU - Xie, Xiaoping
AU - Tan, Qinggui
AU - Cao, Jie
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/11/15
Y1 - 2019/11/15
N2 - To achieve non-mechanical laser beam steering in the scenario of long distance propagation such as free-space laser communication between satellites, large aperture size is an inevitable issue to be considered to narrow the divergence angle of the output beam. Liquid crystal optical phased array, to be one of the solutions of non-mechanical beam steering, has already shown its obvious potential to achieve a relative large aperture on the order of centimeter. To achieve even larger, its driving matrix becomes squared larger. In this paper, we proposed a novel architecture to realize an optical phased array with a scalable aperture. Meanwhile the driving matrix is almost not increased. It provides the feature of a cascade system with a device of spatial phased modulation and an array of duplicating units. Each unit of the duplicating array is consist of a polarization beam splitter and a half wave plate to have the same output optical field distribution as the input beam whose phase front is modulated by a small size spatial modulator. Not only the property of beam deflection is numerically simulated and experimentally verified, but also the property of divergence angle compression and grating lobes limitation are evaluated. Meanwhile, due to the high precision of the experimental alignment, the non-mechanical beam deflection property is still maintained no matter how many the duplicated unit number is. The relative standard derivation steering error is 0.025.
AB - To achieve non-mechanical laser beam steering in the scenario of long distance propagation such as free-space laser communication between satellites, large aperture size is an inevitable issue to be considered to narrow the divergence angle of the output beam. Liquid crystal optical phased array, to be one of the solutions of non-mechanical beam steering, has already shown its obvious potential to achieve a relative large aperture on the order of centimeter. To achieve even larger, its driving matrix becomes squared larger. In this paper, we proposed a novel architecture to realize an optical phased array with a scalable aperture. Meanwhile the driving matrix is almost not increased. It provides the feature of a cascade system with a device of spatial phased modulation and an array of duplicating units. Each unit of the duplicating array is consist of a polarization beam splitter and a half wave plate to have the same output optical field distribution as the input beam whose phase front is modulated by a small size spatial modulator. Not only the property of beam deflection is numerically simulated and experimentally verified, but also the property of divergence angle compression and grating lobes limitation are evaluated. Meanwhile, due to the high precision of the experimental alignment, the non-mechanical beam deflection property is still maintained no matter how many the duplicated unit number is. The relative standard derivation steering error is 0.025.
KW - Aperture extension
KW - Large aperture
KW - Optical phased array
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85067890518&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.optcom.2019.06.037
DO - 10.1016/j.optcom.2019.06.037
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85067890518
SN - 0030-4018
VL - 451
SP - 174
EP - 180
JO - Optics Communications
JF - Optics Communications
ER -