MT~(TM)-compatible connectorisation of VCSEL and RCLED arrays to plastic optical fibre ribbon for low cost parallel datalinks

摘要

For the realisation of MT~(TM)-compatible direct connectorised modules, a PMMA-based interconnection scheme, using index alignment is developed. Plastic pieces are accurately positioned with respect to the chips and then fixed with epoxy, following an index-alignment strategy. Alignment accuracies in the range of 5-10 μm have been achieved, which is sufficient to have good coupling efficiencies in view of the relaxed alignment tolerances when coupling to small diameter (125 μm) plastic optical fibre. The chips are assembled in commercially available packages, which are then mounted on PCB boards. First coupling measurements on fully assembled modules, using a red (670 nm) 1 * 8 VCSEL-array and an infrared (980 nm) 1 * 8 RCLED (resonant cavity LED) array, are successfully carried out.