The present invention relates to an optically controlled microwave antenna (10). To reduce the optical power consumed by the antenna an optically controlled microwave antenna (10) is proposed comprising an antenna array (12) comprising a plurality of antenna elements (18, 118, 218, 318, 418) and a feed (14) for illuminating said antenna array (18, 118, 218, 318, 418) with and/or receiving microwave radiation (16) of the operating frequency from said antenna array (18, 118, 218, 318, 418) to transmit and/or receive microwave radiation. An antenna element (18, 118, 218, 318, 418) comprises a waveguide (20, 120) an optically controllable semiconductor element (32, 132) arranged within the waveguide (20, 120) in front of the light transmissive portion (25, 45, 125) of the second end portion (24), said semiconductor element (32, 132) changing its material properties under control of incident light, and a controllable light source (34, 234) arranged at or close to the light transmissive portion (25, 45, 125) of the second end portion (24) for projecting a controlled light beam (36) onto said semiconductor element (32, 132) for controlling its material properties, in particular its reflectivity.
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