Wide Optical Beam Steering LCOS Device for Solid-State LiDAR Applications

Abstract

We demonstrate one-dimensional beam steering in a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) device with a large birefringence (∆n = 0.2028 at 1550 nm) of the liquid crystal (LC) mixture. The experimental analysis of the optical beam steering angles at different LCOS grating periods is reported. A maximum beam steering angle of ±15.6 o is measured for the fine grating pitch of 3.6 µm with a 1 st -order diffraction efficiency (η1) of 2.28%. Also, the experimental results obtained were verified with the grating equation and numerical simulation. The wide optical beam steering capabilities of our fabricated LCOS device show great potential applications in solid-state LiDAR for future autonomous vehicles.