Non-uniform optical phased array with a large steering angle and high side mode suppression ratio

Appl Opt. 2022 Dec 20;61(36):10788-10793. doi: 10.1364/AO.477363.

Abstract

An optical phased array (OPA) is one of the most promising methods of light detection and ranging. A non-uniform array with different emitter distances is a method to realize OPA steering without grating lobes or a distance between two adjacent emitters larger than λ/2. However, the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) will decrease as OPA turns into a large angle. In this paper, 64-, 128-, and 256-channel non-uniform OPAs are optimized by non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), which is a multi-objective optimization algorithm. Compared with arrays optimized by a genetic algorithm, the SMSR at 80° improves by 2.18, 2.61, and 2.56 dB, respectively.