Discretization of annular-ring diffraction pattern for large-scale photonics beamforming

A solid-state active beamformer based on the annular-ring diffraction pattern is demonstrated in an integrated photonic platform. Such a circularly symmetric annular-ring aperture achieves a radiating element limited field of view. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a multi-annular-ring aperture with a fixed linear density of elements maintains the beam efficiency for larger apertures while reducing the beamwidth and side-lobe level. A 255-element multi-annular-ring optical phased array with active beamforming is implemented in a standard photonics process. A total of 510 phase and amplitude modulators enable beamforming and beam steering using this aperture. A row–column drive methodology reduces the required electrical drivers by more than a factor of 5.