Integrated Optical Carrier for Optical/Electrical Interconnect

A simple and novel design, integrating discrete commercial micro-lens and vertical illuminated optoelectronic component in a substrate with high accuracy, is presented here. Without affecting the optical performances, this integrated optical carrier also allows high-frequency radio-frequency interconnects. This feature is critical for high-speed operation. The high accuracy integrated optical carrier improves the optical coupling efficiency and helps to relax the tight circuit assembly tolerance requirement. The integrated optical carrier can be used for various photonic applications which employ vertical illuminated optoelectronic components. An integrated optical carrier prototype is designed here for the optical electrical interconnect printed circuit board (OECB). For this OECB design, the simulated results show that the integrated optical carrier helps to give an assembly misalignment tolerance of more than ±20 μm with an increase of 1 dB coupling loss. In addition, the simulated optical insertion loss from the transmitter to the receiver is less than 1.4 dB. The optical performance of the prototype integrated optical carrier is measured and compared with the simulation results to ascertain the design concept. For different OECB waveguide designs, dimensions and positions, this integrated optical carrier design is amended to give a better performance and misalignment tolerance.