31 October 2022 Four-access, 80 mm aperture all phase-controlled liquid crystal laser antenna
Zhiqing Liang, Yanwei Huang, Xiaoxian He, Dongmei Wen, Yingli Wang, Xiangru Wang
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

High speed, wide range, and high precise beam steering technology are fundamental to free-space optical communication (FSO). Liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA) is capable of achieving non-mechanical beam steering. This paper demonstrates a parallel, four-communication access beam deflection antenna based on LC-OPA, providing a large aperture, wide steering range, and high pointing precision. This antenna is composed of a coarse tracking subsystem using cascaded liquid crystal polarized grating (LCPG) and a fine tracking subsystem based on LC-OPA. The optical aperture is 80 mm × 80 mm, arranged in 2 × 2 subapertures, each serving a single wavelength beam. Besides, a cascaded control platform based on field programmable gate array is proposed to realize low-latency response. This optical antenna achieves a steering resolution of 20 μrad and covers a range of ±12 deg in two dimensions, laying the foundation for simultaneous access of multiple terminals in FSO communication network.

© 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Zhiqing Liang, Yanwei Huang, Xiaoxian He, Dongmei Wen, Yingli Wang, and Xiangru Wang "Four-access, 80 mm aperture all phase-controlled liquid crystal laser antenna," Optical Engineering 61(10), 105113 (31 October 2022). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.61.10.105113
Received: 26 June 2022; Accepted: 6 October 2022; Published: 31 October 2022
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CITATIONS
Cited by 2 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Antennas

Liquid crystals

Phased array optics

Beam steering

Liquid crystal lasers

Optical engineering

Polarization

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