Compact broadband 5-bit photonic true-time-delay module for phased-array antennas.
Photonic true-time-delay (TTD) lines offer many advantages over their electronic counterparts and are attracting more and more research effort. We demonstrate a device with 32 TTD lines (5-bit) based on substrate guided-wave propagation combined with slanted photopolymer volume phase gratings on a quartz substrate. System design, device fabrication, optimization of fan-out intensity uniformity, and device performance evaluation are addressed as well. The device has a measured bandwidth of up to 2.4 THz and a measured fan-out delay step of 50 ps. The fan-out beam intensity uniformity is within +/-10% . The packing density is 2.5 delay lines/cm(2), which is to our knowledge the highest demonstrated thus far.
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Li
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Chen
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