Miniature planar telescopes for efficient, wide-angle, high-precision beam steering

Ziqian He; Kun Yin; Shin-Tson Wu

doi:10.1038/s41377-021-00576-9

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Miniature planar telescopes for efficient, wide-angle, high-precision beam steering

Articles

- Miniature planar telescopes for efficient, wide-angle, high-precision beam steering
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 10, Issue 8, Pages: 1445-1454(2021)
- Affiliations：
  
  College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
- Author bio：
  
  Shin-Tson Wu (swu@creol.ucf.edu)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-021-00576-9
  CLC：
- Published：31 August 2021，
  
  Published Online：28 June 2021，
  
  Received：08 February 2021，
  
  Revised：28 May 2021，
  
  Accepted：10 June 2021
- Accepted：
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He Z. Q., Yin K. & Wu S. T. Miniature planar telescopes for efficient, wide-angle, high-precision beam steering. Light: Science & Applications, 10, 1445-1454 (2021).
DOI：

He Z. Q., Yin K. & Wu S. T. Miniature planar telescopes for efficient, wide-angle, high-precision beam steering. Light: Science & Applications, 10, 1445-1454 (2021). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-021-00576-9.

摘要

Abstract

Non-mechanical beam steerers with lightweight

compact

high-efficiency

high-precision

and/or large-angle are pivotal for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) of autonomous vehicles

eye-tracking for near-eye displays

microscopy

optical tweezers

and high-precision three-dimensional (3D) printing. However

even the most matured optical phased array can only provide quasi-continuous

efficient beam steering within a small angle range. A telescope module with an angle magnification function can be coupled to enlarge the steering range or precision. But obtaining a compact

low-cost

lightweight

high-quality telescope module with conventional optics remains challenging. Patterned liquid crystal-based planar optical elements offer great design freedom for manipulating the phase profile of light in 2D space. Owing to the advantages of high efficiency

thinness

low cost

easy processing

flexibility

and response to environmental stimuli

a plethora of high-quality optical devices have been demonstrated. Here

a miniature planar telescope mediated by liquid crystal polymers is proposed to offer angle magnification independent of incident spatial location. It consists of two cascaded liquid crystal planar optical elements

each performing a predefined mathematical transformation. By this concept

planar optical elements are fabricated using a new exposure method and assembled into planar telescopes with different magnification factors. Within the incident field range

over 84.6% optical efficiency is achieved with small wavefront distortion. Such a miniature planar telescope shows the potential of cascaded liquid crystal planar optical elements for realizing functionalities that cannot be fulfilled by single optical elements

and enables lightweight

low loss

passive optical transmitters for widespread applications.

关键词

Keywords

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