Review of photonic integrated optical phased arrays for space optical communication

Abstract

A review of photonic integrated optical phased array (OPA) for space optical communication is presented. We review and summarize the typical works of the photonic integrated OPAs with one-dimensional and two-dimensional optical antenna array in recent years. The basic components of the photonic integrated OPA are introduced separately, including optical coupler, optical power division network, phase shifter, and optical antenna. In addition, the configuration of the optical antenna array and the control circuit are introduced for OPA beam steering. The basic principle and experiment setup for testing the radiation properties of the OPA are presented. A proof-of-concept nonuniform silicon integrated OPA with 64 antennas is designed and a one-dimensional beam steering range of 28◦ is achieved with beam width of about 0.25◦. The challenges and development trends of large-scale integrated OPA chip applied in space optical communication are also discussed.