Optimization of Element Positions in Linear Optical Phased Arrays for Broad Beam Steering Operation

Optical phased arrays (OPA) are used to improve the radiation characteristics of single-element antennas and allow dynamic control of the radiation pattern. However, the manufacturing constrains of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) platform limits the minimum inter-element separation to more than half of the operation wavelength, which in uniform arrays results in the appearance of high-intensity secondary lobes, called grating lobes. In this work, we optimize the position of the elements in a non-uniform linear OPA for different beam steering angles. The preliminary results showed that the optimal position of the elements depends on the desired beam steering angle.