Practical two-dimensional beam steering system using an integrated tunable laser and an optical phased array.

A practical two-dimensional beam steering solid-state system based on the synthesis of one-dimensional wavelength tuning and a one-dimensional optical phased array is demonstrated and investigated. The system incorporates an integrated multiple-channel-interference widely tunable laser, an integrated 32-channel optical phased array, an offline phase error correction unit, and home-made control electronics. The introduction of the integrated tunable laser avoids the traditional bulky light source fed into the optical phased array, making the architecture promising to be miniaturized.