Low-crosstalk laser-direct-writing FI/FO device for 8×100-Gbps optical interconnection

Abstract

Fan-in/fan-out (FI/FO) device with low crosstalk is essential for weakly coupled short-reach optical interconnect based on multicore fibers (MCF), for which the laser-direct-writing (LDW) technique is one of the preferred fabrication schemes. In this paper, the influence of FI/FO crosstalk on short-reach intensity-modulation/direction-detection MCF optical interconnection is firstly evaluated, and the crosstalk related to different refractive-index profiles of waveguides and misalignment is analyzed for LDW-FI/FO devices. Then low-crosstalk compact LDW-FI/FO devices matching 8-core MCF are fabricated, adopting multiple-scan method for waveguides with a flat-top refractive-index profile and aberration correction method for precise alignment. Owing to the low crosstalk, 8×100-Gbps optical interconnection over 10-km MCF is experimentally demonstrated with only 0.5-dB penalty compared to 10-km G.652D single-mode fiber transmission. Simulation results indicate that the transmission reach can be further extended to over 40 km. The proposed prototype system with low crosstalk is promising for high-speed optical interconnection applications.