Forming and steering of symmetrical multiple laser beams in optical phased array

Multi-beam technology is one of the key technologies in optical phased array systems for multi-object treatment and multi-task operation. A multi-beam forming and steering method was proposed. This method uses isosceles triangle multilevel phase grating (ITMPG) to form multiple beams simultaneously. Phase profile of the grating is a quantized isosceles triangle with stairs. By changing the phase difference corresponding to the triangle height, multiple beams can be steered symmetrically. It took 34 ms to calculate a set of parameters for one ITMPG, namely one steering. A liquid crystal spatial light modulator was used for the experiment, which formed 6 gratings. The distortion of which had been compensated with the accuracy of 0.0408 λ. Each grating included 16 phase elements with the same period. Steering angle corresponded to the triangle height, which is the phase difference. Relative diffraction efficiency for multiple beams was greater than 81%, intensity nonuniformity was less than 0.134, and the deflection resolution was 2.263 mrad. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can be used to form and steer symmetrical multiple beams simultaneously with the same intensity and high diffraction efficiency in the far field, the deflection resolution is related to the reciprocal of grating period.