High-speed reconfigurable card-to-card optical interconnects based on hybrid free-space and multi-mode fiber propagations

Abstract

In this paper, a high-speed reconfigurable card-to-card optical interconnect architecture based on hybrid free-space and multi-mode fiber (MMF) propagation is proposed. The use of free-space signal transmission provides flexibility and reconfigurability and the MMF extends the achievable interconnection range. A printed-circuit-board (PCB) based integrated optical interconnect module is designed and developed and proof-of-concept demonstration experiments are carried out. Results show that 3 × 10 Gb/s reconfigurable optical interconnect is realized with ∼12 cm free-space propagation and a 10 m MMF length. In addition, since air turbulence due to high temperature of electronic components and ..