• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.467-474
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• 2019

Recently, optical phased array(OPA) based laser detection and ranging(LADAR) has gained great interest to replace the traditional mechanical light detection and ranging technique(LiDAR). In OPA-based LADAR, it is well known that phases of laser pulses traveling through each of channels should be the same to obtain a narrow free-space single beam without noise-like ripples in the far field. However, it is difficult to provide such ideal condition due to the fabrication errors. To tackle this problem, any algorithms should be necessary to compensate the initial random phases of each channel in OPA antenna. In this paper, we propose a hill-climbing based phase calibration algorithm and evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2022

We have investigated the optimal design of an aperiodic optical phased array (OPA) for use in light detection and ranging applications. Three optimization algorithms - particle-swarm optimization (PSO), a genetic algorithm (GA), and a pattern-search algorithm (PSA) - were employed to obtain the optimal arrangement of optical antennas comprising an OPA. The optimization was performed to obtain the minimal side-lobe level (SLL) of an aperiodic OPA at each steering angle, using the three optimization algorithms. It was found that PSO and GA exhibited similar results for the SLL of the optimized OPA, while the SLL obtained by PSA showed somewhat different features from those obtained by PSO and GA. For an OPA optimized at a steering angle <45°, the SLL value averaged over all steering angles increased as the angle of optimization decreased. However, when the angle of optimization was larger than 45°, low average SLL values of <13 dB were obtained for all three optimization algorithms. This implies that an OPA with high signal quality can be obtained when the arrangement of the optical antennas is optimized at a large steering angle.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.235-240
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• 2023

The optical signal injected into an end-fire optical phased array propagates along the waveguides inside the device and is emitted from the edge of the antenna. In general, reflection and scattering occur at the boundary, thereby reducing the emission efficiency of the optical signal. In this article, we propose a silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) tapered waveguide antenna structure whose width is tapered toward the emitting edge, achieving high emission efficiency operating at the 1,550 nm wavelength. The Si₃N₄ tapered waveguide antenna was numerically designed using the 3D finite-difference time-domain method. The optical signal emission efficiency increased from 78% to 96.3%, while reflectance decreased from 22% to 3.7% compared with the untapered waveguide antenna counterpart. This result will not only boost the optical signal intensity but also mitigate optical noise resulting from back reflection along the waveguide in the end-fire optical phased array device.