Optical Phased Array Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing already peaked. activity crested at 36 families in 2022 and has not been re-tested since, despite continued LIDAR commercialization pressure.
- Claims cluster in three IPC lanes. G02F (modulation), G02B (optical elements) and G01S (ranging/positioning) account for the large majority of records, with antenna and general-transmission classes trailing far behind.
- The most-cited art is a decade old. the highest-citation records date to the 2015-2018 filing window, meaning the foundational claim positions were staked out early and are still the reference point.
What this patent set covers
Optical phased arrays (OPAs) and solid-state beam steering replace mechanically rotating mirrors and gimbals with electronically controlled phase shifters, grating couplers and waveguide arrays. The claims in this set concentrate on steering range, sidelobe suppression, phase shifter power consumption and grating coupler design — the four levers that determine whether a chip-scale beam steering device is usable in a LIDAR system rather than just a lab demonstration. The search spans G02F1 (optical control and modulation), G01S17 (optical ranging) and G02B6 (guided-wave optics), which is why the technology composition below shows heavy overlap between modulation, optical-element and positioning subclasses.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 filing counts in the trend chart are necessarily incomplete and should not be read as a real drop-off yet. The signal worth trusting is the shape from 2017 through the 2022 peak.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two charts below cover the same 160 families from two angles: when they were filed, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A single peak year, not a steady climb
Filings rose from 17 in 2017 to a peak of 36 in 2022, the flat-to-declining midpoint of the window. Volumes since then sit below peak, though the last one to two years are undercounted because publication has not caught up with filing.
Modulation and optics dominate, ranging is close behind
G02F (optical control and modulation) leads at 113 records, ahead of G02B (optical elements and systems) at 80 and G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) at 72. Antenna-class H01Q and general transmission-class H04B appear only as secondary classifications, and medical, measurement and materials-analysis classes are minor adjacencies rather than core claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 160 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Phased Arrays and Solid-State Beam Steering with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about optical phased arrays and solid-state beam steering and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited foundational claims
Polarization insensitive optical phased array and associated method
A polarization insensitive optical phased array is provided, for LIDAR or other purposes. A polarization rotator splitter or two-dimensional grating coupler provides two components of co-polarized light, each routed to a separate optical phased array component, with polarization rotation of one output via a half wave plate, so a single controller can manage both components without polarization-dependent loss.Filed by Huawei Technologies; published 2019-06-13.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20150378241A1 | Planar beam forming and steering optical phased array chip and method of using same | 223 |
| 2 | US20170371227A1 | Methods and Systems for Optical Beam Steering | 195 |
| 3 | US9753351B2 | Planar beam forming and steering optical phased array chip and method of using same | 142 |
| 4 | US20180039154A1 | Monolithically integrated large-scale optical phased array | 105 |
| 5 | US20190265574A1 | Methods and systems for optical beam steering | 101 |
| 6 | US9683928B2 | Integrated optical system and components utilizing tunable optical sources and coherent detection and phased … | 58 |
| 7 | US10261389B2 | Methods and systems for optical beam steering | 41 |
| 8 | US6128421A | Electro-optical phased array beam modulator | 41 |
| 9 | US20190293794A1 | Coherent lidar method and apparatus | 39 |
| 10 | CN109901263A | 一种基于共用电极的硅基集成光学相控阵芯片 | 34 |
Citation counts inside a bounded corpus favor older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited; treat this as a map of influence on subsequent filers, not a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the filing trend and IPC composition are read together.
The land grab already happened
Filing rose steadily from 2017 and topped out at 36 families in 2022. That midpoint reading, sitting at the peak rather than on a rising slope, indicates the core claim space around phase-shifter arrays and grating-based steering was staked out in a five-year window rather than being an area still accelerating.
Modulation physics outweighs ranging application
More than two-thirds of records sit in G02F, the subclass covering the phase-shifting and modulation mechanisms themselves, ahead of G01S records that cover ranging/LIDAR system integration. New entrants competing purely on device physics are entering denser prior art than those focused on system-level LIDAR integration claims.
US remains the primary battleground
Nearly three in five records in this set were filed at the USPTO, with EPO, WIPO/PCT and China trailing well behind. A filer optimizing for defensive coverage in this field cannot skip the US receiving office, but the smaller China count relative to US filing volume suggests that jurisdiction is comparatively less crowded today.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical phased arrays and solid-state beam steering, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where the gaps sit
Recent-year momentum across the leading assignees in this set shows zero filings in the latest year for several previously active players, consistent with the broader flat-to-declining trend rather than any single company's retreat.
Cooling activity is field-wide, not company-specific
Several of the more active historical filers in this set, spanning university, corporate and startup assignees, show no new filings in the most recent year. Because this pattern repeats across unrelated organization types, it reads as a maturing claim landscape rather than any one company exiting the field.
A mix of corporate, academic and startup assignees
The assignee set spans large electronics and telecom companies, research universities and dedicated photonics startups, which is typical for a technology that requires both fundamental photonics research and system integration expertise to commercialize.
Filing geography favors the US
The heavy tilt toward US filings, with Europe and PCT as secondary routes and China a smaller but present share, should inform where freedom-to-operate searches get the most weight for teams building steerable optical systems.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| The Regents of the University of Michigan | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 0 | — |
| Analog Photonics LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Quanergy Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| California Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| Advanced Micro Foundry Pte. Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, R&D targeting or competitive tracking.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the most-cited claims
The five highest-cited records in this set, several from the same original assignee family, define the reference claim scope for planar beam-forming and steering chips. Any new filing on phase-shifter arrays should be checked against these first.
Explore in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches before filing
Thermal drift compensation, wide field-of-view grating arrays and low-power CMOS drive circuitry show thinner claim density than the core modulation subclass. These are candidate areas for a first-mover filing position.
Explore in EurekaTrack assignees with recent zero-filing years
Several previously active assignees show no filings in the latest year. Watching whether this reflects a strategic pause, an acquisition, or a shift to trade-secret protection is worth a standing search alert.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions on optical phased array patents
Most claims in this field cover either the physical mechanism that shifts the phase of light across an array of waveguides or antenna elements, or the system-level integration of that mechanism into a beam-steering or LIDAR device. Common claim elements include grating coupler geometry, phase shifter driving circuitry, and methods for suppressing sidelobes in the output beam pattern. A single filing may claim both the device structure and a method of operating it, which is why the same underlying chip design often appears across multiple related publications.
The assignee base in this space mixes large electronics and telecom companies, research universities, and dedicated photonics startups, reflecting that both fundamental photonics research and system integration know-how are needed to commercialize the technology. Several leading assignees show no new filings in the most recent year, a pattern that appears across university, corporate and startup filers alike rather than being specific to one organization. The most-cited foundational patents in the set trace to filings from the 2015-2018 window.
Filing volume rose from 17 in 2017 to a peak of 36 in 2022, then leveled off, which is consistent with the core claim space around phase-shifter arrays and grating-based steering having been substantially staked out during that window. It does not necessarily mean interest in the underlying LIDAR and free-space optics applications has declined, since publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months and the last one to two years of data are undercounted. A true read on 2024-2026 activity will only be possible once those publications catch up.
The densest claim clusters sit in core modulation physics (G02F) and optical elements (G02B), while sub-areas such as thermal drift compensation for phase shifters, wide field-of-view grating coupler arrays, and low-power CMOS-driven phase shifter control show comparatively thinner coverage. These adjacent branches sit close enough to the core technology to be commercially relevant but have not attracted the same filing density, making them reasonable targets for a first claim position.
That Huawei filing claims a polarization insensitive optical phased array architecture that splits co-polarized light into two components, routes each to a separate OPA path, and recombines them using a half wave plate and polarization controller, specifically for LIDAR-type applications. Anyone designing a polarization-diverse OPA receive or transmit path should check whether their architecture uses an equivalent split-rotate-recombine approach, since that structural pattern is the core of what is claimed. Workable alternatives typically involve avoiding the specific splitter-plus-half-wave-plate combination in favor of a different polarization-diversity scheme, such as separate polarization-maintaining fiber paths.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.