Abstract

Optical interconnections have been shown to have advantages over electrical interconnections in terms of speed, energy, and density for global links¹. In addition, the flexibility of optical interconnections permits efficient electronic layouts that can improve the performance of electrical connections in an opto-electronic computing system. Optical interconnections systems are currently a very active area of research^2,3,4,5. These systems typically combine electronic circuits, opto-electronic transmitters and receivers, and optical elements. Electronic circuits are usually designed, optimized, and fabricated using standard VLSI technology. Many technologies are available for opto-electronic transmitters and receivers; in our case, we will use either Si/PLZT^6,7 or Si/MQW⁸ technologies. Similarly, there is a wide choice of technologies available for the optical elements in the system. In this paper we first present some results on diffractive elements for Free-Space Interconnection systems fabricated using e-beam direct write technology. Then we discuss the design and optimization of the diffractive elements used in a particular free-space optical interconnection scheme: the optical transpose interconnection system (OTIS); where we have used CodeV®⁹ optical system design software package to design and optimize several different systems based on both refractive and diffractive micro-optic technologies. In addition, we have explored the possibility of using a volume holographic element to replace the need for a polarizing beam splitter in the system.

© 1996 Optical Society of America