An optical diffraction grating includes a layer of organic solid crystal (OSC) material, an input photonic element configured to couple an input beam to the organic solid crystal material, and an output photonic element configured to receive an output beam from the organic solid crystal material. An applied voltage may be used to control the refractive index of the OSC material and accordingly tune the operation of the optical diffraction grating.

Systems and methods for multiplying the resolution and field-of-view of pixelated displays in accordance with various embodiments of the invention are illustrated. One embodiment includes an apparatus having an image projector for directing light from a pixelated image source into unique angular directions, an image processor electrically connected to the image projector for computing native images of the image source corresponding to first and second field-of-view portions and for computing shifted images in a predefined direction corresponding to the first and second field-of-view portions for sequential display by the image projector, a first set of gratings having a native configuration for propagating the light of the native image and at least one shifted configuration for propagating the light of at least one shifted image, and a second set of gratings having a first configuration for projecting the first field-of-view portion and a second configuration for projecting the second field-of-view portion.

A method for implementing folding M×N wavelength selective switch is provided. A one-dimensional single-mode fiber optic collimator array, a short-focus cylindrical mirror, a first long-focus cylindrical mirror, a retroreflector, a transmission phase diffraction grating, a second long-focus cylindrical mirror, a liquid crystal spatial light modulator, and a liquid crystal graphic loading control system are provided along beam transmission direction. The same set of optical elements is used for incident light and outgoing light by ingenious folding structure. The input port and output port of optical signal are consistent in spatial arrangement, thereby reducing space and improving port utilization. Based on composite liquid crystal chips, a working area of the liquid crystal spatial light modulator is doubled, and a quantity of accommodating ports is greatly increased. A quantity of M×N ports of the WSS can be increased greatly by the above structure and design.

Provided in a method of fabricating an optical element array including providing a silicon substrate, providing a first element layer on the silicon substrate, the first element layer including a plurality of passive optical elements, providing a plurality of semiconductor blocks on a compound semiconductor wafer, providing semiconductor dies by dicing the compound semiconductor wafer by the plurality of semiconductor blocks, and providing a second element layer by providing the semiconductor dies on the first element layer, each of the plurality of semiconductor blocks contacting at least one corresponding passive optical element from among the plurality of passive optical elements.

A display apparatus includes a lightguide for conveying images to a viewing area in a target field-of-view (FOV), and an eye detector for detecting a position of an eye in the viewing area. The lightguide includes a tunable segmented output diffraction grating, each segment for diffracting a portion of the image light to a corresponding segment of the viewing area. A controller is configured to switch to a non-diffracting state those of the segments that are located outside of the target FOV when viewed from the detected eye position.

A polarization multiplex optical transmitter circuit can provide compensation for the transmission PDL while reducing decrease in transmission power. The polarization multiplex optical transmitter circuit includes a beam divider circuit configured to divide light outputted from a light source, optical phase shifters provided in at least one of two waveguides connected to output terminals of the beam divider circuit, a light wave synthesizer circuit connected to the two waveguides, first and second optical transmitters coupled to two output terminals of the light wave synthesizer circuit, a polarization multiplexer configured to synthesize two output polarized waves from the first and second optical transmitters, and a polarization rotator provided between the first and second optical transmitters and the polarization multiplexer and coupled to at least one of the first and second optical transmitters.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar Luneburg lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes a curved (e.g., semi-circular or arced) grating coupler that diffracts the collimated beams out of the lens plane. The beams can be steered in the plane by controlling the direction along which the lens is illuminated and out of the plane by varying the beam wavelength. Unlike other beam steering devices, this device can operate over an extremely wide field of view—up to 180°—without any aberrations off boresight. In other words, the beam quality is uniform in all directions, unlike with aplanatic lenses, thanks to the circular symmetry of the planar Luneburg lens, which may be composed of subwavelength features. The lens is also robust to misalignment and fabrication imperfections and can be made using standard CMOS processes.

An optical scanning device includes: a first waveguide that propagates light by total reflection; and a second waveguide. The second waveguide includes: a first multilayer reflective film; a second multilayer reflective film that faces the first multilayer reflective film; and a first optical waveguide layer directly connected to the first waveguide and located between the first and second multilayer reflective films. The first optical waveguide layer has a variable thickness and/or a variable refractive index and propagates the light transmitted through the first waveguide. The first multilayer reflective film has a higher light transmittance than the second multilayer reflective film and allows part of the light propagating through the first optical waveguide layer to be emitted to the outside. By changing the thickness of the first optical waveguide layer and/or its refractive index, the direction of the part of the light emitted from the second waveguide is changed.

An object of the present disclosure is to provide a phase modulator, a lighting system, and a projector that allow for improving diffraction efficiency in a light phase modulation element. The phase modulator according to the present disclosure includes a light phase modulation element that has a plurality of pixels arranged with the pixel pitches p being different from each other to have a pixel structure suppressing occurrence of high-order diffraction light and that modulates a phase of light with respect to each of the pixels. Moreover, the phase modulator according to the present disclosure includes a capturing optical system that captures a plurality of fluxes of high-order diffraction light generated in each of the pixels.

A beam-steering optical transceiver is provided. The transceiver includes one or more modules, each comprising an antenna chip and a control chip bonded to the antenna chip. Each antenna chip has a feeder waveguide, a plurality of row waveguides that tap off from the feeder waveguide, and a plurality of metallic nanoantenna elements arranged in a two-dimensional array of rows and columns such that each row overlies one of the row waveguides. Each antenna chip also includes a plurality of independently addressable thermo-optical phase shifters, each configured to produce a thermo-optical phase shift in a respective row. Each antenna chip also has, for each row, a row-wise heating circuit configured to produce a respective thermo-optic phase shift at each nanoantenna element along its row. The control chip includes controllable current sources for the independently addressable thermo-optical phase shifters and the row-wise heating circuits.