Solid-State MWIR Beam Steering Using Optical Phased Array on Germanium-Silicon Photonic Platform

We demonstrate a chip-scale germanium-silicon optical phased array (OPA) fabricated on a CMOS-compatible platform capable of 2D beam steering in the mid-infrared wavelength range. The OPA included a specially designed grating emitter waveguide array with uniform emission intensity along the mm-length waveguide propagation to realize very sharp instantaneous field-of-view (IFOV) and wide beam-steering total-field-of-view (TFOV). The experimental results indicated lateral beam-steering TFOV up to 12.7 degrees by phase-tuning the waveguide array and longitudinal TFOV up to 12 degrees by wavelength tuning. The 3-dB beam divergence is 3.08 degrees x 0.18 degrees. The demonstrated OPA architecture can employ wafer-scale fabrication and integration while supporting sensing and imaging applications in the mid-infrared spectral range.