arXiv subjects

Nathan Dostart

Publications and source records attributed to Nathan Dostart.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ultrawide-angle diffraction-limited 2D beam steering via hybrid integrated metasurface-photonic circuit

Two-dimensional (2D) wide field-of-view (FOV) beam steering is a key enabling capability for emerging free-space optical systems, including inter-satellite optical links, airborne LiDAR, point-to-point optical wireless communications, and collaborative robotic platforms. These applications require rapid acquisition and tracking across both azimuth and elevation; architectures that offer wide scanning in only one dimension while maintaining limited coverage in the orthogonal direction constrain link availability, coverage uniformity, and system agility. Here, we demonstrate a chip-scale platform for ultrawide-angle, diffraction-limited 2D beam steering based on hybrid integration of a silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and an optical metasurface. A free-form micro-optical reflector efficiently transforms the guided waveguide mode into an expanded free-space beam that illuminates an analytically optimized ultrawide-FOV metasurface. The integrated system achieves a measured FOV exceeding 160{\deg} while maintaining diffraction-limited beam quality over a broad angular range at telecom wavelengths. This hybrid PIC-metasurface architecture provides a compact and scalable route to high-quality 2D beam steering and establishes a practical pathway toward integrated optical projectors for space-based optical communications and other applications requiring agile, wide-angle, high-fidelity beam control.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Integrated optical isolators using electrically driven acoustic waves

We propose and investigate the performance of integrated photonic isolators based on non-reciprocal mode conversion facilitated by unidirectional, traveling acoustic waves. A triply-guided waveguide system on-chip, comprising two optical modes and an electrically-driven acoustic mode, facilitates the non-reciprocal mode conversion and is combined with modal filters to create the isolator. The co-guided and co-traveling arrangement enables isolation with no additional optical loss, without magnetic-optic materials, and low power consumption. The approach is theoretically evaluated and simulations predict over 20 dB of isolation and 2.6 dB of insertion loss with 370 GHz optical bandwidth and a 1 cm device length. The isolator utilizes only 1 mW of electrical drive power, an improvement of 1-3 orders of magnitude over the state-of-the-art. The electronic driving and lack of magneto-optic materials suggest the potential for straightforward integration with the drive circuitry, possibly in monolithic CMOS technology, enabling a fully contained `black box' optical isolator with two optical ports and DC electrical power.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Verniered Optical Phased Arrays for Grating Lobe Suppression and Extended FOV

Optical phased arrays (OPAs) which beam-steer in 2D have so far been unable to pack emitting elements at $λ/2$ spacing, leading to grating lobes which limit the field-of-view, introduce signal ambiguity, and reduce optical efficiency. Vernier schemes, which use paired transmitter and receiver phased arrays with different periodicity, deliberately misalign the transmission and receive patterns so that only a single pairing of transmit/receive lobes permit a signal to be detected. A pair of OPAs designed to exploit this effect thereby effectively suppress the effects of grating lobes and recover the system's field-of-view, avoid potential ambiguities, and reduce excess noise. Here we analytically evaluate Vernier schemes with arbitrary phase control to find optimal configurations, as well as elucidate the manner in which a Vernier scheme can recover the full field-of-view. We present the first experimental implementation of a Vernier scheme and demonstrate grating lobe suppression using a pair of 2D wavelength-steered OPAs. These results present a route forward for addressing the pervasive issue of grating lobes, significantly alleviating the need for dense emitter pitches.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Multiplexing Guided Optical and Acoustic Waves for Efficient Acousto-Optic Devices

Acousto-optic devices utilize the overlap of acoustic and optical fields to facilitate photon-phonon interactions. For tightly confined optical and acoustic fields, such as the sub-wavelength scales achievable in integrated devices, this interaction is enhanced. Broadband operation which fully benefits from this enhancement requires light and sound to co-propagate in the same cross-section, a geometry currently lacking in the field. We introduce the `acoustic-optical multiplexer', which enables this co-linear geometry, and demonstrate through simulations a proof-of-concept design. Using suspended silicon and silica beams, the multiplexer combines two optical modes and an acoustic mode into a single, co-guided output port with low insertion loss and reflection for both optics and acoustics. The first design in its class, the multiplexer enables integrated acousto-optic devices to achieve efficient photon-phonon interactions.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Optical Isolation with Microring Modulators

Optical isolators, while commonplace in bulk- and fiber-optic systems, remain a key missing component in integrated photonic systems. Isolation using magneto-optic effects has been difficult to implement due to fabrication restraints, motivating use of other non-reciprocal effects such as temporal modulation. We demonstrate a non-reciprocal modulator comprising a pair of microring modulators and a microring phase shifter in an active silicon photonic process which, in combination with standard frequency filters, facilitates isolation. Isolation up to 13 dB is measured with a 3 dB bandwidth of 2 GHz and insertion loss of 18 dB. As one potential application is cross-talk suppression in bi-directional communication links, we also show transmission of a 4 Gbps data signal through the isolator while retaining a wide-open eye diagram. This compact design, in combination with increased modulation efficiency, could enable modulator-based isolators to become a standard `black-box' component in integrated photonics foundry platform component library.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Serpentine optical phased arrays for scalable integrated photonic LIDAR beam steering

Optical phased arrays (OPAs) implemented in integrated photonic circuits could enable a variety of 3D sensing, imaging, illumination, and ranging applications, and their convergence in new LIDAR technology. However, current integrated OPA approaches do not scale - in control complexity, power consumption, and optical efficiency - to the large aperture sizes needed to support medium to long range LIDAR. We present the serpentine optical phased array (SOPA), a new OPA concept that addresses these fundamental challenges and enables architectures that scale up to large apertures. The SOPA is based on a serially interconnected array of low-loss grating waveguides and supports fully passive, two-dimensional (2D) wavelength-controlled beam steering. A fundamentally space-efficient design that folds the feed network into the aperture also enables scalable tiling of SOPAs into large apertures with a high fill-factor. We experimentally demonstrate the first SOPA, using a 1450 - 1650 nm wavelength sweep to produce 16,500 addressable spots in a 27x610 array. We also demonstrate, for the first time, far-field interference of beams from two separate OPAs on a single silicon photonic chip, as an initial step towards long-range computational imaging LIDAR based on novel active aperture synthesis schemes.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Toward Microphononic Circuits on Chip: An Evaluation of Components based on High-Contrast Evanescent Confinement of Acoustic Waves

We investigate the prospects for micron-scale acoustic wave components and circuits on chip in solid planar structures that do not require suspension. We leverage evanescent guiding of acoustic waves by high slowness contrast materials readily available in silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. High slowness contrast provides strong confinement of GHz frequency acoustic fields in micron-scale structures. We address the fundamental implications of intrinsic material and radiation losses on operating frequency, bandwidth, device size and as a result practicality of multi-element microphononic circuits based on solid embedded waveguides. We show that a family of acoustic components based on evanescently guided acoustic waves, including waveguide bends, evanescent couplers, Y-splitters, and acoustic-wave microring resonators, can be realized in compact, micron-scale structures, and provide basic scaling and performance arguments for these components based on material properties and simulations. We further find that wave propagation losses are expected to permit high quality factor (Q), narrowband resonators and propagation lengths allowing delay lines and the coupling or cascading of multiple components to form functional circuits, of potential utility in guided acoustic signal processing on chip. We also address and simulate bends and radiation loss, providing insight into routing and resonators. Such circuits could be monolithically integrated with electronic and photonic circuits on a single chip with expanded capabilities.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2017

Elastic Wave Eigenmode Solver for Acoustic Waveguides

A numerical solver for the elastic wave eigenmodes in acoustic waveguides of inhomogeneous cross-section is presented. Operating under the assumptions of linear, isotropic materials, it utilizes a finite-difference method on a staggered grid to solve for the acoustic eigenmodes of the vector-field elastic wave equation. Free, fixed, symmetry, and anti-symmetry boundary conditions are implemented, enabling efficient simulation of acoustic structures with geometrical symmetries and terminations. Perfectly matched layers are also implemented, allowing for the simulation of radiative (leaky) modes. The method is analogous to eigenmode solvers ubiquitously employed in electromagnetics to find waveguide modes, and enables design of acoustic waveguides as well as seamless integration with electromagnetic solvers for optomechanical device design. The accuracy of the solver is demonstrated by calculating eigenfrequencies and mode shapes for common acoustic modes in several simple geometries and comparing the results to analytical solutions where available or to numerical solvers based on more computationally expensive methods.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2015

Giant Gain Enhancement in Surface-Confined Resonant Stimulated Brillouin Scattering

The notion that Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is primarily defined by bulk material properties has been overturned by recent work on nanoscale waveguides. It is now understood that boundary forces of radiation pressure and electrostriction appearing in such highly confined waveguides can make a significant contribution to the Brillouin gain. Here, this concept is extended to show that gain enhancement does not require nanoscale or subwavelength features, but generally appears where optical and acoustic fields are simultaneously confined near a free surface or material interface. This situation routinely occurs in whispering gallery resonators (WGRs), making gain enhancements much more accessible than previously thought. To illustrate this concept, the first full-vectorial analytic model for SBS in WGRs is developed, including optical boundary forces, and the SBS gain in common silica WGR geometries is computationally evaluated. These results predict that gains $10^4$ times greater than the predictions of scalar theory may appear in WGRs even in the 100 um size range. Further, trapezoidal cross-section microdisks can exhibit very large SBS gains approaching $10^2$ m$^{-1}$W$^{-1}$. With resonant amplification included, extreme gains on the order of $10^{12}$ m$^{-1}$W$^{-1}$ may be realized, which is $10^8$ times greater than the highest predicted gains in linear waveguide systems.

physics.optics↗