High-Speed Beam Steering With Phased Vertical Cavity Laser Arrays

Author

Johnson, Matthew Thomas ; Siriani, Dominic Francis ; Meng Peun Tan ; Choquette, Kent D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Volume

19

Issue

4

fYear

2013

fDate

July-Aug. 2013

Firstpage

1701006

Lastpage

1701006

Abstract

We demonstrate electronic beam steering using phased vertical cavity laser arrays at record high speed (1.4·10⁸ deg/s) and sensitivity to current (1.2 deg/100 μA). The relative phase and coherence between the array elements are extracted with a Fraunhoffer propagation method. The spatially resolved spectrum and beam steering dynamics are also analyzed. The thermo-optic effect is found to dominate the phase-shifting mechanism at lower speed steering, while the electronic variation in index dominates at higher speeds (≥10 MHz).

Keywords

laser cavity resonators; light propagation; optical phase shifters; thermo-optical effects; Fraunhoffer propagation; array elements; beam steering dynamics; electronic beam steering; high-speed beam steering; phase-shifting mechanism; phased vertical cavity laser arrays; spatially resolved spectrum; thermo-optic effect; Beam steering; Coherence; High speed optical techniques; Optical sensors; Phased arrays; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; Beam steering; phased arrays; semiconductor laser arrays; semiconductor lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2244574

Filename

6425397