High‐Performance Integrated Laser Based on Thin‐Film Lithium Niobate Photonics for Coherent Ranging

Abstract

AbstractFrequency‐modulated continuous‐wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has a huge potential for developing the next generation of LiDAR applied in autonomous driving, industrial automation, environmental monitoring, and so on. An ideal laser for the FMCW LiDAR system should simultaneously feature fast chirp repetition frequency, a large chirp bandwidth, high linearity, a compact footprint, and low‐cost. In this study, such a laser based on thin‐film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics is proposed and demonstrated. The laser can achieve a chirp bandwidth of 3.44 GHz, a tuning efficiency of 574 MHz V−1, and a chirp rate of 3.44 × 107 GHz s−1, which are the best values compared with other TFLN‐based lasers. A FMCW LiDAR system built by their laser is also experimentally demonstrated, showing that it can achieve a ranging precision of 4.9 mm, a velocity precision of 0.054 m s−1, and a sampling rate of 5 MSa s−1.