Cryogenic Optical Interconnects for Infrared Sensing Applications

Silicon (Si) photonics is poised to make an impact in critical military applications requiring high-speed and high-bandwidth interconnects. Current efforts for military applications are focused on high-pixel count (e.g. > Megapixel) and fast frame rate (e.g. > 1 kHz) infrared (IR) focal plane arrays (FPA) that operate at cryogenic temperatures and produce large amounts of data (e.g. 20 Gbps and beyond). Traditional electronic interconnects are no longer viable for these high-performance imaging applications; optical interconnects however are considered viable due to extremely high bandwidth and low thermal conductance. Progress toward developing a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) scalable optical interconnect architecture, for use in cryogenic environments is reported.