Patent ID: 8311374

Claim:
An integrated photonic beam steering device comprising: a planar photonic substrate; an input waveguide disposed on said planar photonic substrate and configured to accept electromagnetic energy from a source of electromagnetic energy radiation; a first splitter disposed on said planar photonic substrate and optically coupled to said input waveguide and configured to split said electromagnetic radiation into one or more paths; and one or more phased array rows disposed on said planar photonic substrate and optically coupled to each of said one or more paths, each phased array row comprising: a row splitter configured to split said each of said one or more paths into two or more row paths; two or more phase modulators, each of said two or more phase modulators optically coupled respectively via a row waveguide to each of said two or more row paths, each of said two or more phase modulators having a phase modulator output; and two or more output couplers optically coupled respectively to each phase modulator output of said two or more phase modulators, each of said two or more output couplers configured to emit electromagnetic radiation away from said substrate, said two or more output couplers configured to radiate a steered photonic beam in a desired direction away from said integrated photonic beam steering device.