Physics

Beam steering

Lens (geology)

Laser

Beam divergence

Photonic crystal

Optics

Beam diameter

Beam (structure)

Materials science

Waveguide

Photonic integrated circuit

Collimated light

Laser beams

Optoelectronics

Optics Express

We demonstrate a nonmechanical, on-chip optical beam-steering device using a photonic-crystal waveguide with a doubly periodic structure that repeats the increase and decrease of the hole diameter. We fabricated the device using a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process. We obtained a beam-deflection angle of 24° in the longitudinal direction, while maintaining a divergence angle of 0.3°. Four such waveguides were integrated, and one was selected by a Mach-Zehnder optical switch. We obtained lateral beam steering by placing a cylindrical lens above these waveguides. By combining the lateral and longitudinal beam steering, we were able to scan the collimated beam in two dimensions, with 80 × 4 resolution points.

Two-dimensional beam-steering device using a doubly periodic Si photonic-crystal waveguide