Optical interconnects based on arrays of surfaceemitting lasers and lenslets

A compact free-space optical system that uses arrays of surface-emitting lasers and lenslets for chip-to-chip and board-to-board optical communication is described. A seven-channel optical interconnect has been demonstrated at 300 Mbits/s per channel, and we describe how such a system can be expanded to several hundred channels while its compactness and alignability are retained.