US Patent 11863206 Optical phased array driver

An optical phased array comprising a row-column driving mechanism is disclosed that reduces the number of digital to analog converter (DAC) channels to the number of rows N and the total number of interface pin counts down to the number of columns plus the number of rows M+N. Disclosed herein are systems and architecture for thermal waveguide-based phase shifters which improve thermal efficiency by having multi-pass waveguides arranged proximate a heating element in a serpentine fashion, which enables an increase in phase shift without increasing the length or the power consumption of the heating element by increasing the total length of waveguide being heated by a singular heating element.