Frequency–angular resolving LiDAR using chip-scale acousto-optic beam steering

Thanks to its superior imaging resolution and range, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is fast becoming an indispensable optical perception technology for intelligent automation systems including autonomous vehicles and robotics1–3. The development of next-generation LiDAR systems critically needs a non-mechanical beam-steering system that scans the laser beam in space. Various beam-steering technologies4 have been developed, including optical phased array5–8, spatial light modulation9–11, focal plane switch array12,13, dispersive frequency comb14,15 and spectro-temporal modulation16. However, many of these systems continue to be bulky, fragile and expensive. Here we report an on-chip, acousto-optic beam-steering technique that uses only a single gigahertz acoustic transducer to steer light beams into free space. Exploiting the physics of Brillouin scattering17,18, in which beams steered at different angles are labelled with unique frequency shifts, this technique uses a single coherent receiver to resolve the angular position of an object in the frequency domain, and enables frequency–angular resolving LiDAR. We demonstrate a simple device construction, control system for beam steering and frequency domain detection scheme. The system achieves frequency-modulated continuous-wave ranging with an 18° field of view, 0.12° angular resolution and a ranging distance up to 115 m. The demonstration can be scaled up to an array realizing miniature, low-cost frequency–angular resolving LiDAR imaging systems with a wide two-dimensional field of view. This development represents a step towards the widespread use of LiDAR in automation, navigation and robotics.