Open AccessHeterogeneous silicon photonics sensing for autonomous cars [Invited]
Author(s) -
Xie Wang,
Tin Komljenović,
Jianguo Huang,
Minh A. Tran,
Michael Davenport,
A. Torres,
Paolo Pintus,
John E. Bowers
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.27.003642
Subject(s) - gyroscope , photonics , phased array optics , lidar , optics , interferometry , phased array , silicon photonics , materials science , optoelectronics , computer science , physics , telecommunications , antenna (radio) , quantum mechanics
Heterogeneous silicon photonics is uniquely positioned to address the photonic sensing needs of upcoming autonomous cars and provide the necessary cost reduction for widespread deployment. This is because it allows for wafer-scale active/passive integration, including optical sources. We present our recent research and the development of interferometric optical gyroscopes and LiDAR sensors. More specifically, we show a fully integrated gyroscope front-end occupying an area of only 4.5 mm 2 . We also show the first dense pitch optical phased array using heterogeneous phase shifters. The 4 µm pitch heterogeneous phase shifters provide very low V 2π of only 0.35-1.4 V across 200 nm, low residual amplitude modulation of only 0.1-0.15 dB for 2π phase shift, extremely low static power consumption (<3 nW), and high speed (> 1 GHz). All of these factors make them ideal for next-generation LiDAR systems that employ optical phased arrays.