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Optical Phased Array — Grating Lobes & Phase Quantization

Steer a silicon-photonic optical phased array by setting a per-element phase gradient, then watch the far-field beam pattern reveal grating lobes and quantization error as pitch, wavelength and phase bit-depth change.

Materials Science3DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 2D version

Solid-state LiDAR chips and beam-steering metasurfaces both replace mechanically rotating mirrors with a flat array of tiny controllable emitters, each driven with its own phase. This simulator renders a real one-dimensional optical phased array: set a target steering angle and the per-element phase gradient needed to reach it is computed live from k0·x·sinθ, then the true far-field array-factor pattern is evaluated and drawn beneath the array. Push the element pitch past the grating-lobe-free limit, or drop the phase-shifter resolution to just 1–2 bits, and a second unwanted beam grows out of the pattern — exactly the two trade-offs real photonic beam-steering hardware has to engineer around.

⚙ Under the hood

Steer a silicon-photonic optical phased array by setting a per-element phase gradient, then watch the far-field beam pattern reveal grating lobes and quantization error as element pitch, wavelength and phase-control bit depth change.

optical-phased-arraybeam-steeringgrating-lobesphase-quantizationmetasurfacephotonics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install