We introduce and demonstrate a quasi-ternary nonmechanical beam steering design based on Polarization Gratings (PGs). That uses a single wave plate and N PGs to generate 2(^N+1)-1 steering angles. When compared to conventional binary (2^N) or ternary (3^N) liquid crystal PG steering designs, this technique uses fewer elements arranged in a simpler configuration to obtain the same number of steering angles. This advantageous property can be achieved by selecting proper diffraction angles and alignment of the PGs. Due to fewer elements per stage, losses due to electrode absorption and Fresnel reflections are reduced, thereby increasing the overall steering efficiency. Using this approach, we demonstrate a four-stage (N = 4) quasi-ternary beam steering device that achieves 52° Field Of Regard (FOR) with 1.7° resolution (31 steering angles) at 1550 nm wavelength.

Date Published: 12 August 2010
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 7816, Advanced Wavefront Control: Methods, Devices, and Applications VIII, 78160G (12 August 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.860885

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7816:
Advanced Wavefront Control: Methods, Devices, and Applications VIII
David C. Dayton; Troy A. Rhoadarmer; Darryl J. Sanchez, Editor(s)