Abstract

Advances in arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) allow monolithic integration of a wide variety of devices using guided-wave photonics.¹ One particular application of interest is beam steering. Beam steering devices implemented in a guided-wave architecture are attractive in optical signal processing, packet switching and laser displays. Various means of achieving efficient beam steering have been explored to date.^2,3 Our approach is based on using quantum well intermixing technology⁴ to integrate a tuneable DBR laser with an AWG device, as shown in Fig. 1. By virtue of the phase shift achieved by an optical path length difference between the adjacent waveguides, the beam can be steered in the far field by tuning the wavelength of operation. As a demonstration of the principle, we have reported recently the operation of a laser diode integrated with a 1:16 multimode interference couple (MMI) using QWI.⁵. Although the outputs of the 1:16 MMI can be steered by adding electro-optic phase arms on the output waveguides, this technique needs complex adjustment of the phase relation between the waveguides for proper operation. Here we report the fabrication and operational characteristics of an AWG for steering a beam steering by tuning the wavelength.

© 2000 IEEE