This perspective paper reviews recent progress across four major OPA architectures, including 1D OPAs, 1D OPAs with wavelength tuning, 2D OPAs, and dispersive OPAs, and analyzes their operational principles, performance metrics, limitations, and application suitability. Phased-array optics is the technology of controlling the phase and amplitude of light waves transmitting, reflecting, or captured (received) by a two-dimensional surface using adjustable surface elements. An optical phased array (OPA) is the optical analog of a radio-wave phased array. The next step for phased-array radar is to achieve full digital control of the beam, often called a. In an optical fiber phased array, the array layout of the outgoing beam has a crucial influence on the coherent combination performance of high-power lasers. In this paper we present results in two key areas: 1) For receive-only arrays, we report on improvements in analog fiber links that have resulted in new records for the intrinsic noise figure. The coherent beam combining of fiber lasers with an internal phase control has drawn many interests at present, which is a promising method to achieve a large-scale optical phased array.
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