Integrated fiber-PIC synthetic aperture chip enables 2D high-resolution interferometric imaging

The implementation of synthetic aperture interferometry via photonic integrated circuits (PICs) holds significant potential for miniaturized high-resolution imaging systems, particularly in space optics and precision metrology. However, its advancement remains constrained by two fundamental limitations: restricted baseline reconfigurability (conventionally fixed at <20 mm) and aliasing artifacts induced by quasi-uniform sampling patterns during two-dimensional image reconstruction. To overcome these challenges, we develop a hybrid fiber-PIC architecture enabling continuous baseline adjustment from 10 mm to 50 mm through dynamically tunable fiber delay lines, integrated with a wheel-optimized non-uniform radial sampling strategy designed to minimize spectral matrix mapping errors by prioritizing baseline angles intersecting frequency grid points, achieving 1.6 dB PSNR improvement and 4.3 RMSE reduction for structured targets compared to uniform sampling. Experimental comparisons with lenslet-based systems confirm superior fringe clarity in our approach, with resolved fringe counts precisely matching the target's spatial frequency characteristics. The system successfully reconstructs two-dimensional features of a 5 lp/mm resolution target across multiple angular configurations (0°-150°). This breakthrough not only establishes what we believe to be a new paradigm for adaptive baseline synthetic aperture systems but also paves the way for deployable interferometric imagers in mass/volume-critical scenarios, including CubeSat-based Earth observation and intraoperative endoscopic sensing.