Angle Sensitive Optical Sensor for Light Source Tracker Miniaturization

An angle sensitive optical sensor without conventional optics is presented in this article. The reported device omits the need for adding 3-D optics in postprocessing by monolithic integration of complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor compatible diffraction grating layers, which cuts down the fabrication costs and allows for miniaturization of these types of sensors. The sensor resolves angular information from a monochromatic light source over a single axis with a mean absolute accuracy of 0.6° in an investigated $\pm 26$ ° field-of-view using four unique pixels. This letter facilitates miniaturization of light source trackers, such as sun position sensors on small satellites of the future.