Realization of low-cross-talk half-wavelength pitch waveguide array on a silicon-on-insulator platform

Realizing a densely packed waveguide antenna array is of great importance in light detection and ranging (LIDAR), owing to its suppressed grating lobes. In this work, a low-cross-talk half-wavelength pitch silicon waveguide array is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It has a periodic arrangement of silicon strip nanophotonic waveguides, between which deep-subwavelength silicon strips are placed. Our experimental results show that this array's cross talk suppression is nearly 20 dB and has a bandwidth covering a wavelength range from 1500 nm to 1560 nm. Our realization of a half-wavelength pitch waveguide array may offer a promising platform for studying integrated optical phased arrays for solid-state LIDAR with a very low grating lobe and thus potentially a large field of view.