Passive assembly of parallel optical devices onto polymerbased optical printed circuit boards

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the latest results from research and development into future optical printed circuit board OPCB interconnects and lowcost assembly methods. Designmethodologyapproach A novel method of highprecision passive alignment and assembly to OPCBs was invented and a full evaluation platform developed to demonstrate the viability of this technique. Findings The technique was successfully deployed to passively align and assemble a lens receptacle onto an embedded polymer waveguide array in an electroOPCB. The lens receptacle formed a critical part of a dual lens pluggable inplane connection interface between peripheral optical devices and an OPCB. A lateral inplane mechanical accuracy of 2m has been measured using this technique. Research limitationsimplications As this is a free space optical coupling process, surface scattering at the exposed waveguide end facet was significant. Originalityvalue This paper details a novel method of passively assembling arbitrary optical devices onto multimode optical waveguides and outlines the procedure and equipment required. A lens coupling solution is also presented which reduces susceptibility of a connecting optical interface to contamination.