Self aligned, flip chip assembly of photonic devices with electrical and optical connections

Self-aligned flip-chip assembly using solder bump bonding has been applied to photonic circuits, resulting in several important advantages, including high precision, excellent ruggedness, and uncritical final assembly. Experiments with lithium niobate integrated optical chips and single-mode optical fibers have demonstrated that the optical coupling loss due to misalignment can be held to less than 1 dB in a fully self-aligned, multifiber assembly. The technique achieves ~1 μm accuracy in optical-fiber placement without requiring micromanipulation of piece parts during final assembly, and simultaneously forms an essentially unlimited number of high-performance electrical bonds in an interconnect pattern distributed as required over the chip surface. The assemblies are compatible with a rugged environment and with hermetic packaging