A photonic crystal optical phased array device has a dispersion engineered slow light waveguide region; a mode coupler region capable of optically coupling an input waveguide to the dispersion engineered slow light waveguide region; and optical antenna regions integrated within the dispersion engineered slow light waveguide region. The dispersion engineered slow light waveguide region has a substantially linear dispersion relation within a predetermined operational bandwidth of the optical phased array device. The optical antenna regions are formed by an alteration of a periodic structure of the photonic crystal and are capable of radiating light out from the dispersion engineered slow light waveguide region.