Chip-scale blue light phased array

Title: Chip-scale blue light phased array

Teams: Columbia University, JASR Systems

Writers: Min Chul Shin, Aseema Mohanty, Kyle Watson, Gaurang R. Bhatt, Christopher T. Phare, Steven A. Miller, Moshe Zadka, Brian S. Lee, Xingchen Ji, Ipshita Datta, and Michal Lipson

PubDate: Apr 2020

Project: Viewport-Aware Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach for 360° Video Caching

Abstract

Compact beam steering in the visible spectral range is required for a wide range of emerging applications, such as augmented and virtual reality displays, optical traps for quantum information processing, biological sensing, and stimulation. Optical phased arrays (OPAs) can shape and steer light to enable these applications with no moving parts on a compact chip. However, OPA demonstrations have been mainly limited to the near-infrared spectral range due to the fabrication and material challenges imposed by the shorter wavelengths. Here, we demonstrate the first chip-scale phased array operating at blue wavelengths (488 nm) using a high-confinement silicon nitride platform. We use a sparse aperiodic emitter layout to mitigate fabrication constraints at this short wavelength and achieve wide-angle beam steering over a 50° field of view with a full width at half-maximum beam size of 0.17°. Large-scale integration of this platform paves the way for fully reconfigurable chip-scale three-dimensional volumetric light projection across the entire visible range.