Tunable Optofluidic Couplers for Dynamic Card-to-Backplane Optical Interconnect

Abstract

Polymer waveguides with tunable optofluidic couplers are fabricated by the vacuum assisted microfluidic technique for dynamic card-to-backplane optical interconnect applications. The backplane optofluidic coupler consists of polymer waveguides with 45° integrated waveguide mirrors and perpendicular microfluidic channel structures for translational movement of index matching liquid and air bubbles. Controlled positioning of the air bubble or index matching liquid in contact with the integrated mirror can effectively turn on or off each optofluidic coupler for surface normal coupling in card-to-backplane optical interconnection. Experimental results demonstrated about 23 dB on/off surface normal interconnect signal change for both 1/3 and half size waveguide mirrors of the optofluidic couplers. 10 Gbps card-to-backplane optical interconnect eye diagrams have been demonstrated showing the effectiveness of the interconnect structure.