Photonic Integrated Chips for Millimeter-Wave and THz Beam Steering Antennas

This paper discusses the use of advantageous photonic integrated chips for beam switching antennas and beam steering antennas in the millimeter-wave and THz frequency ranges. Planar directive (up 15.4 dBi) frequency scanning leaky wave antennas (LWAs) connected to photodiodes for 5G beam steering (26 GHz and 60 GHz) with scanning angles up to 110° are reported. One and two dimensional (1D/2D) beam steering for wireless communication with multiple users as well as mobile terminal localization is demonstrated. Also, THz beam switching using lensed-assisted THz antenna arrays as well as THz beam steering using THz LWA and novel photonic integrated circuits (PICs) providing phase shift and true time delay (TTD) based optical beam forming networks are presented.