Verniered Optical Phased Arrays for Grating Lobe Suppression and Extended FOV

TL;DR

This paper introduces Vernier schemes with paired optical phased arrays to suppress grating lobes, extend the field-of-view, and reduce ambiguity, supported by analytical evaluation and the first experimental demonstration.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental implementation of Vernier schemes in 2D wavelength-steered OPAs for grating lobe suppression and FOV extension.

Findings

Vernier schemes effectively suppress grating lobes.

Experimental demonstration shows successful FOV recovery.

Analytical evaluation identifies optimal configurations.

Abstract

Optical phased arrays (OPAs) which beam-steer in 2D have so far been unable to pack emitting elements at $\lambda/2$ spacing, leading to grating lobes which limit the field-of-view, introduce signal ambiguity, and reduce optical efficiency. Vernier schemes, which use paired transmitter and receiver phased arrays with different periodicity, deliberately misalign the transmission and receive patterns so that only a single pairing of transmit/receive lobes permit a signal to be detected. A pair of OPAs designed to exploit this effect thereby effectively suppress the effects of grating lobes and recover the system's field-of-view, avoid potential ambiguities, and reduce excess noise. Here we analytically evaluate Vernier schemes with arbitrary phase control to find optimal configurations, as well as elucidate the manner in which a Vernier scheme can recover the full field-of-view. We present the first experimental implementation of a Vernier scheme and demonstrate grating lobe suppression using a pair of 2D wavelength-steered OPAs. These results present a route forward for addressing the pervasive issue of grating lobes, significantly alleviating the need for dense emitter pitches.