NOVEL PHASED-ARRAY OPTICAL-SCANNING DEVICE IMPLEMENTED USING GAAS/ALGAAS TECHNOLOGY

A novel type of optical beam scanning device based on the same principle as a phased array radar has been made and demonstrated. This phased array optical scanning device consisted of a uniformly illuminated array of ten closely spaced, single mode GaAs/AlGaAs electrooptic waveguides, each of which was individually addressed to give more than 2-pi radians of optical phase control. This gave a line of ten point sources of light on a 3-mu-m pitch at the output face of the array. By independently phase shifting these light sources the output wavefront was controlled to scan a 2-degrees wide beam through 20-degrees in the far field.