Dual-prism coupler for board-level free-space optical interconnects: design and simulations

作者：Nair Rohit^*; Goossen Keith W; Haney Michael W

来源：Optical Engineering, 2012, 51(4): 045401.

DOI：10.1117/1.OE.51.4.045401

• optical interconnects
• vertical cavity surface emitting lasers reliability
• free-space
• board-level
• multiple quantum well

An optical design for coupling light from off-chip lasers to on-chip surface-normal modulators is proposed in order to implement chip-to-chip free-space optical interconnects. The method uses a dual-prism module constructed from prisms made of two different glasses. The various alignment tolerances of the proposed system were investigated. For the off-chip lasers, vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL) are proposed. The rationale behind using on-chip modulators rather than VCSELs is to avoid VCSEL thermal loads on the chip, and because of higher reliability of modulators than VCSELs. Particularly above 10 Gbit/sec (Gbit/sec), an empirical model shows rapid decrease of VCSEL median time to failure vs. data rate. Thus the proposed interconnect scheme which utilizes continuous wave VCSELs that are externally modulated by on-chip multiple quantum well modulators is applicable for chip-to-chip optical interconnects at 20 Gbit/sec and higher line data rates.

• 出版日期2012-4