WAVELENGTH-DIVISION MICROLENS INTERCONNECTION USING WEAKLY DIFFRACTEDGAUSSIAN-BEAM

Free-space digital optics is a new technology that exploits the abilit y of optics to handle thousands of light beams or information channels at once. This and other features of optics complement the strengths a nd weaknesses of purely electronic systems. A compact free-space optic al system is proposed that uses an array of microlenses for chip-to-ch ip and board-to-board interconnections. Here the weakly diffracted Gau ssian beam and wavelength-division architecture are utilized to improv e the channel density and reduce crosstalk in a microlens interconnect ion system. Based on the simulation, we improve the channel capacity b y 3.47 times (or reduce crosstalk by 93.1 dB) while maintaining the sa me crosstalk (or channel density) compared with the conventional micro lens interconnection system. The nonperfect filtering effect of differ ent wavelengths at the detector plane is also studied to fully investi gate the properties of the proposed scheme. The parameter sensitivity of the proposed system is studied for completeness. From the simulatio ns, the relationship between the interconnection distance and spot siz e at the detector plane is wavelength-independent. In addition, the sp ot size is more sensitive to change of microlens diameter than to othe r system parameters.