Patent ID: 11953678
Assignee: ANALOG PHOTONICS LLC
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 25:
26. A method for aberration correction of an optical phased array (OPA), the method comprising:
providing light to an array of antennas, said array of antennas defining an overall aperture of the OPA, and two or more of the antennas each comprising a waveguide and at least one antenna emitter structure, where at least two of the waveguides receive light from an optical distribution network;
operating the OPA such that light is emitted from the antennas into a far-field of the OPA;
detecting the far-field light;
determining, from the detected far-field light, OPA aberrations; and
applying using a phase corrector, from the determined OPA aberrations, at least one of: (1) a spatially-varying optical path difference (OPD) across the overall aperture of the OPA, where the spatially-varying OPD is configured to correct or cancel out any far-field beam aberrations, or (2) a spatially-varying optical phase shift across the overall aperture of the OPA, where the spatially-varying optical phase shift is configured to correct or cancel out any far-field beam aberrations;
wherein the overall aperture of the OPA is arranged as a plurality of sub-apertures, and the phase corrector comprises a plurality of index-modifying elements overlying the OPA, each one of the index-modifying elements associated with a particular sub-aperture, and each one of the index-modifying elements modifying at least one of the OPD or optical phase shift of the sub-aperture with which it is associated; and
wherein at least two of the antennas share a common waveguide, each one of the two antennas associated with a different sub-aperture, wherein at least one of the index-modifying elements is positioned intermediate to the two antennas.