Direct optical-wire bonding: 3D writing of polymer-wire waveguides for optical interconnects

The direct optical wiring (DOW) technology which is based on the 3D writing of optically transparent polymer wires using a meniscus-guided method is employed to develop multi-mode optical interconnects for VCSEL-MMF applications. This DOW method, similar in concept to conventional electrical wire bonding, does not require any chemical reactions. DOW bonding is used to optically connect high-speed VCSELs and standard OM3 multi-mode fibers (MMFs). The resulting simplified lens-free transmitter modules show a high coupling efficiency (65%) and 12 Gbit/sec error-free transmission per-channel, which is satisfactory for optical HDMI 2.1 applications. In the presentation, the 4K-60Hz performance transmitted through the HDMI2.1 will be demonstrated and extended single-mode results introduced. We believe that DOW bonding can be a powerful platform technology for optical interconnect and photonic integration for innovative industrial and academic photonic applications.