Abstract:
In order to avoid the saturation phenomenon of output optical power of all silicon optical phased array (OPA) and the low phase shifting efficiency of silicon nitride, a design concept combining silicon and silicon nitride was adopted, which ensured the phase shifting efficiency while achieving high power input. In addition, in order to avoid phase noise caused by mutual coupling between channels, silicon-based integrated OPA had waveguide spacing greater than half wavelength, which led to the presence of gate lobes and limited the scanning range. To solve this problem, a silicon waveguide was used as the input waveguide in front of the antenna to reduce the array elements spacing. The results show that, the chip ultimately achieves a scanning range of 41°×7.4° and a chip loss of 10.7 dB. This study is helpful for further improvement of OPA chips.