A proposed vertical-cavity optical repeater for optical inter-board connections

A novel optical device, in which a photodiode and an optical amplifier are integrated in a vertical-coupled cavity, is proposed. Conditions to suppress the reflection, important for an optical interconnection without optical isolators, are clarified. Its fundamental characteristics and cascadability are analyzed by the transfer matrix method. A transmission gain sufficient to compensate for the coupling loss, a photodiode (PD) efficiency of about unity, and an excellent cascadability of over 100 stages are predicted.