Resonant optical phased arrays are a promising way to reach fully reconfigurable metasurfaces in the optical and near-infrared (NIR) regimes with low energy consumption, low footprint, and high reliability. Continuously tunable resonant structures suffer from inherent drawbacks such as low phase range, amplitude-phase correlation, or extreme sensitivity that makes precise control at the individual element level very challenging. We computationally investigate 1-bit (binary) control as a mechanism to bypass these issues. We consider a metasurface for beam steering using a nanoresonator antenna and explore the theoretical capabilities of such phased arrays. A thermally realistic structure based on vanadium dioxide sandwiched in a metal-insulator-metal structure is proposed and optimized using inverse design to enhance its performance at 1550 nm. Continuous beam steering over 90° range is successfully achieved using binary control, with excellent agreement with predictions based on the theoretical first-principles description of phased arrays. Furthermore, a broadband response from 1500 to 1700 nm is achieved. The robustness to the design manufacturing imperfections is also demonstrated. This simplified approach can be implemented to optimize tunable nanophotonic phased array metasurfaces based on other materials or phased shifting mechanisms for various functionalities.
Keywords: LIDAR; beam steering; binary control; inverse design; nanoresonator; phased array; reconfigurable metasurface; vanadium dioxide.