The goal of this program is to develop and fabricate an ultra-low Size, Weight, and Power (SWAP) integrated electro-optic beam-steering technology that utilizes ultra-fast electro-optic active plasmonic waveguide arrays to achieve very wide scanning angle with diffraction limited beam quality. We develop a very scalable electro-optic plasmonic waveguides array that provides the electro-optic phase shift in sub-wavelength waveguide cross-section in the near-field. plasmonics enable sub-diffraction-limit dimension, allows for ultra-high speed, low power consumption, on-chip integration, and low-unit-cost. The innovative scalable plasmonic array design can steer efficiently the optical beam over wide angle range >1700, while being ultrafast, compact and power efficient, with low loss to the laser beam, the large optical aperture > 1cm allows the device to handle very high laser beam power. Existing beam steering device are bulky, hybrid and cant be integrated on miniature multifunction aperture for EO/IR sensors. The use of novel plasmonic metallic nano-structure waveguide array, with efficient and fast electro-optic material, will enable miniature fast beam-steering devices that have never been done before. The plasmonic beam steering resolution and scalability will be able to generate diffraction limited beam that could match the beam quality of steering mirrors.
Benefit: Anticipated development of, ultra-low SWaP, high throughput, plasmonic beam steering (HPBS) devices concept will be of immediate use where conventional beam steering devices has been prohibited by steering speed, size, integration, weight, vibration and power consumption. This technology is critical to the success of beam steering devices. When brought to product, some of the commercial applications that will benefit directly from the use of this technology are laser projection systems, laser detection and ranging, heads-up displays, and free-space optical communications, and aerospace applications. Commercial applications are driven by the need for compact, flexible, low weight electro-optic beam steering for LIDAR applications. The high throughput plasmonic beam steering (HPBS) concept will be integrated on a variety of devices on production for dual use military and commercial applications, such as miniature laser detection, imaging, ranging (LADAR/LIDAR) sensors, free space data communication links, and high performance data, projection display and image processing.
Keywords: nanophotonics fabrication, free-space optical communications, Electro-optic Effect, Plasmonic waveguide array, laser detection and ranging, LADAR/LIDAR, plasmonic beam steering
