Real-time 850 nm multimode VCSEL to 1 550 nm single mode VCSEL data routing for optical interconnects

Abstract

Short-reach optical interconnects among massive serves in data centers have attracted extensive research recently. Increasing capacity, cost and power efficiency as well as wavelength switching between data center network nodes are still key challenges for current optical interconnects. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the real-time inter-mode optical wavelength switching technique, for high-speed wavelength flexible data center interconnects. A 10 Gbit/s 1 550 nm single mode vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is optically injected and used to control a 10 Gbit/s multimode VCSEL carrier at 850 nm. Results show that a clearly open eye diagram is achieved at back-to-back analysis, implying a successful wavelength switch and error-free operation at 10 Gbit/s. A fully optical wavelength conversion of a multimode VCSEL operation at 850 nm using a single mode VCSEL subject to external optical injection at 1 550 nm is reported. This work opens new perspectives towards the development of a cost effective high-speed real-time inter-band wavelength switching technique between servers and network devices operating at different transmission windows at network nodes, for current and future optical interconnects.