Joseph E. Marchegiano

Polyguide polymeric technology for optical interconnect circuits and components

The expanding information revolution has been made possible by the development of optical communication technology. To meet the escalating demand for information transmitted and processed at high data rates and the need to circumvent the growing electronic circuit bottlenecks, mass deployment of not only optical fiber networks but manufacturable optical interconnect circuits, components and connectors for interfacing fibers and electronics that meet economic and performance constraints are absolutely necessary. Polymeric waveguide optical interconnection are considered increasingly important to meet these market needs. DuPonts polyguide polymeric integrated optic channel waveguide system is thought by many to have considerable potential for a broad range of passive optical interconnect applications. In this paper the recent advances, status, and unique attributes of the technology are reviewed. Product and technology developments currently in progress including parallel optical ink organization and polymer optical interconnect technology developments funded by DARPA are used as examples to describe polyguide breadth and potential for manufacture and deployment of optical interconnection products for single and multimode telecom and datacom waveguide applications.

Optical waveguide circuit board with a surface-mounted optical receiver array

A photonic circuit board is fabricated for potential application to interchip and interboard parallel optical links. The board comprises photolithographically patterned polymer optical waveguides on a conventional glass-epoxy electrical circuit board and a surface-mounted integrated circuit (IC) package that optically and electrically couples to an optoelectronic IC. The waveguide circuits include eight-channel arrays of straights, cross-throughs, curves, self-aligning interconnects to multifiber ribbon, and out-of-plane turning mirrors. A coherent, fused bundle of optical fibers couples light between 45-deg waveguide mirrors and a GaAs receiver array in the IC package. The fiber bundle is easily aligned to the mirrors and the receivers and is amenable to surface mounting and hermetic sealing. The waveguide-receiver-array board achieved error-free data rates up to 1.25 Gbits/s per channel, and modal noise was shown to be negligible.

Gigabit parallel fiber optic link based on edge emitting lasers

We present a 10 channel parallel fiber optic link consisting of a transmitter based on an edge emitting laser diode array operating at 980 nm and a complementary receiver based on an InGaAs pin photodetector array. We demonstrate link performance up to data rates of 1 Gbit/s with measurement time limited bit errors rates lower than 10/sup -11/ over 100 m of multi-mode fiber ribbon cable.

Polyguide technology for passive optical interconnects

DuPont has developed an optical interconnect technology consisting of polymer materials and fabrication and assembly processes. This technology, referred to as Polyguide, provides the user with the capability to mass produce channel optical waveguides that perform splitting, point to point interconnection, wavelength discrimination and other optical functions. These materials and processes make packaging practical. This has been demonstrated with optical printed wiring boards, connectorized multilayer ceramic modules and discrete pigtailed components. Critical interfacing requirements have also been met. These include the passively aligned attachment of single mode optical fiber arrays and the fabrication of low loss mirrors for coupling to laser diodes, LEDs, and photodectors. As part of the ARPA funded POLO project DuPont is advancing the fabrication and assembly processes to allow low cost deployment of optical interconnects. A description of current Polyguide technology and performance specifications will be presented. Demonstrations of packaging will be reviewed. This polymer system addresses most of the tasks required for the practical utilization of optical waveguides. Polyguide technology can enable optical connectivity and transmission in many new products.

Excimer laser micromachining for passive fiber coupling to polymeric waveguide devices

The precise control and high-resolution ablation capability inherent in excimer laser machining make it ideally suited for creating slots for passive alignment of optical fibers to planar channel waveguides as well as for direct waveguide-to-waveguide coupling. This paper describes KrF excimer laser generation of passive alignment coupling slots and the results achieved using this technique with Polyguid polymeric integrated optic system single and multimode waveguide coupling.