Free-space optical link with spatial redundancy for misalignment tolerance

• Published in: IEEE photonics technology letters Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 242 - 244
• Main Authors: Bisaillon, E., Brosseau, D.F., Yamamoto, T., Mony, M., Bernier, E., Goodwill, D., Plant, D.V., Kirk, A.G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2002; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Alignment; Bandwidth; Boards; Contact; Design optimization; Free-space optical interconnects; Kirk field collapse effect; Links; Misalignment; Optical arrays; Optical crosstalk; Optical design; Optical fiber communication; Optical interconnections; Redundancy; Tolerances; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers
• ISSN: 1041-1135; 1941-0174
• DOI: 10.1109/68.980535

Free-space optical interconnects can provide high bandwidth with no physical contact, but suffer from poor tolerances to misalignment. In order to obtain high misalignment tolerances, we propose the use of an active alignment scheme in conjunction with an optimized optical design. The active alignment scheme uses a redundant set of optical links and the active selection of the best link. The optical design maximizes the alignment tolerances between the two boards to /spl plusmn/1 mm of lateral and /spl plusmn/1/spl deg/ of angular misalignment for a target data rate of 1.25 Gb/s.