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Scientific Reports:

G. Schmid, W. Leeb:
"Data transmission properties and loss mechanisms of flexible boards with LightLinkTM waveguide material";
Report for Report on WP4-53 within contract AT&S Opto-Electronic Circuit Boards IOI-Concepts_WA1_WP4_7; 2011; 26 pages.



English abstract:
We tested four flexible opto-electronic circuit boards based on LightLinkTM waveguides with respect to data transmission properties and loss mechanisms. We determined the losses of boards ATS_TPA3_096 and ATS_TPA3_098 to be 13.6 dB and 17 dB, respectively, giving rise to the possibility of data transmission in the Gbit/s regime. Boards ATS_TPA3_095 and ATS_TPA3_097 showed losses of approximately 27 dB and are therefore not suitable for high data rate applications. For all four boards the losses were nearly independent of the ambient temperature between −20°C and 80°C.
Bending the boards reduced the photocurrent only slightly. A noticeable reduction of the current was found only when deforming the boards towards the optical layer. When deformed with a radius of 1.5 cm, the photocurrent of the boards decreased from 51 µA to 42 µA and from 30 µA to 23 µA for boards ATS_TPA3_096 and ATS_TPA3_098, respectively.
The achievable data rate with board ATS_TPA3_096 was 4 Gbit/s at a BER ≤ 10-9. At board ATS_TPA3_098 the BER at a data rate of 1 Gbit/s was slightly above 10-9.
Cutting board ATS_TPA3_096 at several distances to the laser revealed input coupling losses of approximately 6.5 dB and intrinsic waveguide losses on the order of 0.1 dB/cm. The waveguide-to-mirror-to-photodiode coupling losses show potential for improvement: For board ATS_TPA3_096 they are approximately 6 dB, for board ATS_TPA3_097 we determined 4.1 dB.

Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.