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Jörg Moisel
Optical Backplanes for Avionic and Telecommunications
An optical backplane which uses multimode polymer waveguides was originally developed for avionic applications but can be used in telecom switching systems as well. For transmission distances in the range of 1 m and data rates of 10 Gbit/s, the modal dispersion of multimode waveguides can be neglected. The waveguides are fabricated on large substrates (aluminium, FR4 and others) by a direct writing technique. Splitters and couplers can be fabricated with the same technique. The waveguides have a low loss (0.04 dB/cm at 850 nm) and high temperature stability (>250 °C) and are used with 850 nm vertical cavity lasers. The waveguide cross section can be chosen between approx. 250μm×250μm and 100μm$×100μm. We have successfully transmitted up to 10 Gbit/s over multimode polymer waveguides with lengthes >100 cm. A free space, expanded beam coupling is used for the board-backplane transition, resulting in high alignment tolerances. The overall insertion loss for a backplane connection is typically between 2 and 8 dB, depending on waveguide length, radius of curvature and number of waveguide crossings.
it – Information Technology (vormals it+ti), Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Print ISSN: 1611-2776
Volume: 45, 02/2003
Pages: 072