High speed, wide range, and high precise beam steering technology are fundamental to free-space optical communication (FSO). Liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA) is capable of achieving non-mechanical beam steering. This paper demonstrates a parallel, four-communication access beam deflection antenna based on LC-OPA, providing a large aperture, wide steering range, and high pointing precision. This antenna is composed of a coarse tracking subsystem using cascaded liquid crystal polarized grating (LCPG) and a fine tracking subsystem based on LC-OPA. The optical aperture is 80 mm × 80 mm, arranged in 2 × 2 subapertures, each serving a single wavelength beam. Besides, a cascaded control platform based on field programmable gate array is proposed to realize low-latency response. This optical antenna achieves a steering resolution of 20 μrad and covers a range of ±12 deg in two dimensions, laying the foundation for simultaneous access of multiple terminals in FSO communication network.
Liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LC-SLMs) are usually polarization sensitive optical elements. In this paper, we propose a polarization-independent beam steering system to overcome the polarization problem of conventional liquid crystal devices by employing two polarization-dependent LC-SLMs, a polarizing beam splitter and a half-wave plate. In this system, two one-dimensional LC-SLMs are aligned orthogonally to deflect the beam in azimuthal and elevation, respectively. This system enables LC-SLMs to work in any polarization state of incident light, and can realize continuous two-dimensional laser beam pointing. Properties of polarization-independence as well as two-dimensional beam steering were mathematically and experimentally verified with a good agreement. Using the well aligned beam steering system, linearly polarized beams in different polarization angle are deflected with high accuracy and efficiency. The measured angular deviations are less than 5 micro-radians to show a high-accuracy beam steering of the system. This polarization-independent beam steering scheme is useful in the applications of nonmechanical laser communication, Lidar, and other LC-based devices.
This paper reviews the research progress of liquid crystal optical phased array (LCOPA) devices in space laser communication applications. According to the constraints of space applications and system requirements, in the design and key technologies of array devices, the research progresses on the implementation methods such as wide-point range, large-aperture optical aperture, short response time, and space environment adaptability are emphatically introduced. In introducing the wide beam pointing range, the beam control method and the digital concatenation scheme are mainly described. In the study of large aperture, the area filling module and the area selection module are separately analyzed. And comparatively expounded the realization of sub-millisecond order rapid response of liquid crystal materials, and finally gave the United States Air Force laboratory's research on the liquid crystal optical phased array device irradiation environment adaptability research results.
With the rapid development of switchable devices for the K-band (≤40GHz) frequency range, there is a strong demand for liquid crystals (LCs) exhibiting high birefringence, low melting point and low dielectric loss ,low viscosity and good miscibility. The novel series of difluorovinyl liquid crystal compounds with Δn value around 0.4, relatively low melting point which can be as low as 34.4℃ were designed and synthesized. Comparing the difluorovinyl liquid crystal compound with isothiocyanide-containing liquid crystals, UV absorption test and dielectric loss test analysis at high frequency were performed. Difluorovinyl liquid crystals were prepared into a mixed liquid crystal material for high-frequency dielectric loss test and viscosity performance test analysis at different temperatures to explore its low temperature viscosity dependenceon temperature. The experimental results show that the difluorovinyl liquid crystal compounds not only have higher Δn value and lower melting point, but also have lower dielectric loss at high frequency and low temperature viscosity, which can improve the low temperature viscosity performance of liquid crystal materials.
Liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA) has been considered with great potential on the non-mechanical laser deflector because it is fabricated using photolithographic patterning technology which has been well advanced by the electronics and display industry. As a vital application of LC-OPA, free space laser communication has demonstrated its merits on communication bandwidth. Before data communication, ATP (acquisition, tracking and pointing) process costs relatively long time to result in a bottle-neck of free space laser communication. Meanwhile, dynamic real time accurate tracking is sensitive to keep a stable communication link. The electro-optic medium liquid crystal with low driving voltage can be used as the laser beam deflector. This paper presents a fast-track method using liquid crystal optical phased array as the beam deflector, CCD as a beacon light detector. PID (Proportion Integration Differentiation) loop algorithm is introduced as the controlling algorithm to generate the corresponding steering angle. To achieve the goal of fast and accurate tracking, theoretical analysis and experimental verification are demonstrated that PID closed-loop system can suppress the attitude random vibration. Meanwhile, theoretical analysis shows that tracking accuracy can be less than 6.5μrad, with a relative agreement with experimental results which is obtained after 10 adjustments that the tracking accuracy is less than12.6μrad.
To realize a non-mechanical laser beam deflector with a wide steering range, improved high order grating method (i-HOG) was theoretically proposed on the promising optical phased array device using the material of liquid crystal. In this paper, experimental prototype and results are presented to verify the performance on the wider steering range when the method of i-HOG was applied on the corresponding device. To satisfy the requirement on much deeper phase retardation, the optical film of liquid crystal was redesigned and fabricated as well as driving hardware. Comparing with the conventional methods where the modulo of phase delay is 2π, liquid crystal optical phased array using the method of i-HOG can succeed a double steering range. Meanwhile, experimental results also show better diffraction efficiency.
Beam steering characteristics of transmission liquid crystal optical phased array(LC-OPA) were measured using ultra precision electronic autocollimator. A continuous beam steering with a constant angular resolution in the order of 20 μrad is obtained experimentally from 0° to 6° based on the method of variable period grating (VPG).Meanwhile, the angular repeatability of less than 4 μrad (RMS) has been achieved.
Liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA) has been reported to be one of the promising methods to realize nonmechanical laser beam steering in free-space laser communication. The nonmechanical beam steering mechanism of LC-OPA in a free-space laser communication process is demonstrated. To analyze the steering performance of LC-OPA for a beam arriving from arbitrary directions, a theoretical model based on two-dimensional liquid crystal orient model and backward propagation method is proposed. In addition the phase characteristics are discussed both in normal and oblique incident cases, and a linear relationship between angle-of-arrival and detected incident angle is also derived. All of the theoretical results are verified by the following experiments with a good agreement.
Agile beam steering has been previously reported to be one of the unique properties of a liquid crystal optical phased array. We propose a stochastic scanning method using the property of agile beam steering to shorten acquisition time in building a free-space laser communication link. As a specific example, Gaussian stochastic scan enables higher acquisition probability and shorter acquisition time. In addition, there are two factors to influence the results: standard deviation of stochastic scanning angle and the width of the laser beam. Theoretical analysis is presented that the stochastic scanning method is a unique method to speed up the acquisition process in free-space laser communication.
To achieve a wider scanning range of liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA), in this paper, a novel method of improved high order grating (i-HOG) is proposed in one device without introducing any other devices. The method of i-HOG breaks through the traditional ideas of modulo 𝟐𝛑 phase and takes the fringe effect into account to have a multi order extension. Subsequently, the method is verified by numerical simulation showing that it realizes a scanning range of wider than 20 degrees and even wider.
We present an effective method to realize continuously one-dimensional steering of coherently combined beam in the
field-of-view of PALCOPA. To achieve this purpose, besides the linear phase profiles to steer the incident lasers, extra
phase modulations should be applied to them. These phase offsets depend on both the assigned deflection angle of
combined beam and the parameters of beam combining system. Using the Fraunhofer propagation principle, we derive
the analytical expressions of the far-field intensity distribution of the combined beam. The analytical functions
demonstrate the validity of the proposed method. Finally, we evaluate the proposed technique through computer
simulations and experiments, by considering three main indicators of the combined beam, i.e. deflection accuracy,
mainlobe width and combining gain.
Based on the phase modulation characteristics of optically addressed liquid crystal spatial light modulator
(OA-LC-SLM) which is realized by controlling the power of addressing light, a physical model of coherent beam
combination fiber laser using a bunch of fibers and a device of OA-LC-SLM is established on the theory of
diffraction optics and liquid crystal birefringence effect. On the basis of this model, the properties of given scheme
of coherent beam combination fiber laser are investigated including main lobe distribution and ability of phase
modulation. Meanwhile, the plot functions of phase modulation versus the optical power of addressing light are
obtained on different given driving voltage conditions and fiber alignment parameters such as core diameter and
filling factor. After the numerical simulation, it shows that, this coherent beam combination fiber laser using
OA-LC-SLM demonstrates an ability of coherent beam combination on the far field. With the increase of core
diameter, the combination efficiency is improved better, and the divergence angle decreases narrower.
Gain guided and index antiguided fiber, having a negative refractive index step from the
cladding to the core combined with an adequate gain effect, can deliver robust single mode
operation with a large mode area. In this paper, we introduce this new concept of gain guided and
index antiguided fiber into fiber amplifier, and evaluate the gain characteristics by solving
propagation rate equations on the Yb3+ doped fiber, where the core has a radius of 50um, refractive
index n0 = 1.58, and the index step Δn = -0.0045, concentration of ions 2.43×1026m-3, at the signal
(975nm) and the pump (910nm) wavelength and a initial signal power 1μW. According to the
function of gain versus fiber length, being obtained from the numerical computation, we can
confirm that a properly designed gain guided and index antiguided fiber can provide highly efficient
optical amplification with a short length, and revise the set of transcendental equations at optimal
total gain effect and optimal fiber length on the case of gain guided and index antiguided fibers.
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