Light detection and ranging (LiDAR), combining traditional radar technology with modern laser technology, has much potential for applications in navigation, mapping, and so on. Benefiting from the superior performance, an all-solid-state beam steering realized by integrated optical phased array (OPA) is one of the key components in the LiDAR system. In this review, we first introduce the basic principle of OPA for beam steering. Then, we briefly review the detailed advances of different solutions such as micro-electromechanical system OPA, liquid crystal OPA, and metasurface OPA, where our main focus was on the recent progress of OPA in photonic integrated chips. Finally, we summarize the different solutions and discuss the challenges and perspectives of all-solid-state beam steering for LiDAR.

We propose and demonstrate a 1×2 power splitter enabling arbitrary power splitting ratios. The device is based on a directional coupler with subwavelength structure in the coupling region and a trapezoid-structure in one arm. The measurement shows that arbitrary power splitting ratios, equal to 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20 and 90:10, can be obtained over an >80 nm bandwidth with an excess loss about 0.65 dB at 1550 nm, while the footprint is only 11.5 μm ×1.315 μm. The proposed arbitrary ratio power splitter shows promising application prospect in photonic integrated circuits.

Polarizers are the essential components to purify the polarization in the system demanding for the single polarization propagation. Polarizers with broad working bandwidth, low excess loss (EL) and large polarization extinction ratio (PER) are usually preferred. TE polarizers with ultrahigh performance have been demonstrated. However, the bandwidth of the previously reported transverse magnetic (TM) integrated polarizers is still limited to be < ∼160 nm when the EL < 1 dB and PER > 20 dB are simultaneously satisfied. In this paper, an all-silicon integrated TM polarizer with > 415 nm working bandwidth from 1260 nm to 1675 nm is experimentally demonstrated. The device consists of a double slot structure with 180° Euler bending on silicon waveguides. The effective refractive index (ERI) for TE polarization in the double slot structure is lower than that of the silica buffer/cladding while ERI for TM polarization is much larger than that of the silica buffer/cladding. Thus, TE polarization will leak into the substrate while TM polarization can propagate through the device with low loss. The measured transmission spectra for the fabricated polarizer show low EL < 0.9 dB and large PER > 25 dB over an ultrabroad band beyond the O-, E-, S-, C-, L-and U- bands.

We propose a large scanning range silicon optical phased array (OPA), which is polarization multiplexed and bi-directional with only one waveguide grating antenna array. Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) and polarization splitter-rotator (PSR) are utilized to select the polarization states and propagation directions of the input light to the waveguide grating emitter array. By optimizing the parameters of the waveguide grating, the longitudinal far-field steering range is increased by four times compared to that of the conventional ones among the same wavelength range. The simulation results show that the 54.5° longitudinal scanning range could be realized with the tuning wavelength ranging from 1500 nm to 1600 nm. The high wavelength tuning efficiency is up to 0.545 °/nm. The beam steering range in the lateral direction is 77.8° via phase tuning.

A polarization-insensitive thermo-optic switch is proposed and demonstrated on the silicon-on-insulator platform with a 220 nm silicon core layer. The present device is based on the Mach–Zehnder interferometer structure, consisting of polarization-insensitive power splitters and polarization-insensitive phase shifters (PIPSs). The polarization-insensitive power splitter has been realized by employing an adiabatic directional coupler, which utilizes the fast adiabatic mode evolution by introducing cubic Bézier curves on outer contours, providing broadband 3-dB power splitting for TE and TM polarization modes with only 70 µm coupling length. For the novel PIPSs, the ridge waveguide with large aspect ratio, based on the mode hybridness property, could obtain the same power consumption (Pπ) for an optical switch working at TE and TM polarizations. Experimental results indicate that the measured insertion losses are less than 2 dB and the extinction ratios are larger than 15 dB over a 40 nm wavelength band (covering the C-band).

A polarization-insensitive optical filter is proposed and demonstrated with 340-nm-thick silicon photonic waveguides. It consists of a polarization-insensitive mode (de)multiplexer and a polarization-insensitive multimode waveguide grating (MWG). The MWG is designed optimally according to the polarization-insensitive phase-matching condition. Meanwhile, longitudinal apodization is introduced in the MWG to suppress the sidelobes. For the fabricated silicon photonic filter based on a single stage of MWG, the 1-dB bandwidth as large as ∼13 nm, the excess loss is ∼1 dB and the sidelobe suppression ratio is about 10 dB for both polarizations. In particular, the performance is improved greatly by introducing more than one MWGs in cascade, and the fabricated device has a sidelobe suppression ratio as high as >30 dB.