Reconfigurable Optical Phased Array for LiDAR Blind-Spot Compensation and Resolution Enhancement

Abstract

Solid-state beam steering enabled by optical phased arrays (OPAs) is a promising solution for compact and high-speed light detection and ranging (LiDAR). However, the vertical field of view (FOV) in conventional OPAs is fundamentally constrained by the laser tuning range, inevitably leaving forward blind spots. Existing FOV expansion strategies rely on additional optical paths or extra control channels, incurring a prohibitive complexity scaling. Here, we implement a reconfigurable silicon-based OPA that achieves orthogonal FOV reconfiguration through hardware-efficient component reuse. By dynamically routing light between two orthogonally arranged grating arrays, the OPA enables seamless switching between horizontal- and vertical-dominant scanning modes, achieving complementary FOVs of 99.7° × 14.8° and 14.6° × 99.4°, respectively, without duplicating the photonic circuitry. Being combined with frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging, the OPA achieves dual-mode 3D imaging. Experimental results show that the dual-mode complementation effectively eliminates forward blind spots, reducing the minimum detectable near-field distance to 22 cm. Furthermore, fusion of the complementary point clouds improves sampling completeness and contour fidelity, leading to a 32% enhancement in reconstruction quality. This work provides a hardware-efficient route toward reconfigurable LiDAR systems that simultaneously improve perception coverage and spatial resolution.