We demonstrate the non-mechanical beam steering and amplifier operation of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) integrated Bragg reflector waveguide amplifier with a cut-off wavelength detuning design, which enables unidirectional lateral coupling, continuous electrical beam steering, and diffraction-limited divergence angle. We present the modeling of the proposed structure for unidirectional coupling between a seed single-mode VCSEL and slow-light amplifier. We also present the detailed operating characteristics including the near-field and far-field patterns, light/current characteristics, and lasing spectrum. The experimental measurements exhibit a single-mode output of over 8 mW under CW operation, a continuous beam steering range of 16°, and beam divergence below 0.1° as an optical beam scanner. The integrated amplifier length is as small as 0.9 mm, and thus we could expect much higher powers and higher resolution points by increasing the amplifier lengths.

光波束形成网络是光控相控阵雷达中的重要组成部分，有助于提升系统的宽带宽角扫描能力。利用光开关的切换，改变各收发通道间的相对延时量，从而实现波束指向的变化。在常用的技术中，色散延时是一种简洁的光波束形成实现方法，而色散线性项仅适用于色散量小且通道数少的情况。随着延时量的增加，非线性色散延时积累，会引起波束畸变。因此引入相对色散斜率（RDS）作为其非线性因子，并通过调整商用激光器波长来抵消色散介质的非线性效应。当RDS为0.003 nm⁻¹时，激光器阵列的最大波长间隔从0.796 nm “拉伸”到0.862 nm，波长也整体“平移”−0.31 nm，修正波长与商用激光器波长的最大调整量为0.2 nm，可满足商用波分复用器的通带带宽，大扫描角时主瓣与副瓣之比从5 dB提升至12.9 dB。通过分析，RDS数值越小，激光器波长的修正量越小。因此，RDS是选择色散介质和调整激光器波长的重要参数，从而能够恢复波束畸变，以提升相控阵系统的成像、识别能力。