Optical readout and control interface for the BTeV pixel vertex detector

Optical links will be used for sending data back and forth from the counting room to the detector in the data acquisition systems for future high energy physics experiments, including ATLAS and CMS in the LHC at CERN (Switzerland) and BTeV at Fermilab (USA). This is because they can be ultra-high speed and are relatively immune to electro-magnetic interference (EMI). The baseline design for the BTeV Pixel Vertex Detector includes two types of optical link, one to control and monitor and the other to read out the hit data from the multi-chip modules on each half-plane of the detector. The design and performance of the first prototype of the Optical Readout and Control Interface for the BTeV Pixel Vertex Detector is described.