On the Design of Unconventional Optical Phased Array Antennas

The design of unconventional optical phased array architectures suitable for implementation within photonic integrated circuits, is addressed. Starting from a set of free-space-optics beam pattern requirements, thinned array layouts are optimized using a multi-objective approach with the double goal of minimize the array architecture complexity, while controlling the radiation pattern side lobes and main lobe beam width. A numerical example is reported showing an illustrative design of the proposed method.