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See a collection of SEM photos of top and bottom emitting VCSELs fabricated for the FSOI project. |
Free space optical interconnects (FSOIs) are the future solution to bottleneck presented by on-board transmission lines. As processing speed continues to increase, throughput is limited by board-to-board and chip-to-chip communication. In FSOIs, arrays of lasers and detectors will send and receive data, which is transmitted across free space. There is no need for physical transmission lines, thus bandwidth is greatly improved.
VCSELs Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) are now the emitting device of choice for implementation of FSOIs. VCSELs have several advantageous characteristics over other types of semiconductor lasers:
The research that CSL is doing focuses on a bottom-emitting concept which facilitates integration to silicon CMOS driving circuitry. The fabrication of a bottom emitting device for FSOI requires advanced processing techniques and careful consideration to all aspects of the device design.
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VCSELs have several key components which must be designed carefully in order to achieve good operating characteristics. Click here to few some of the fundamental aspects of device design.
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VCSELs are fabricated by thermal wafer bonding to sapphire and dry etching using BCl3 in an ECR machine. Follow the link to find out more about how the devices are made. |
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VCSELs are key devices for the implementation of FSOIs. View a presentation on how CSL is improving these devices. PDF version is available. |
This page contains a list of publications related to the project. |
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