Low power consumption semiconductor lasers for optical interconnections

Optical interconnects are expanding their fields toward shorter distance data transmission. Server-to-Server and Board-to-Board optical interconnections are now available in high performance computing systems such as supercomputers, and Chip-to-Chip, Core-to-Core, and CMOS-to-CMOS optical interconnections are expected to be realized to break their speed and power consumption limitations. Short distance interconnects do not need high optical output power like conventional long distance telecom lasers. However, at the same time, such interconnects require low power consumption operation of lasers and driver electronics. To realize the low power consumption lasers and drivers, both low threshold and high efficiency operations of the lasers should be achieved, but these two parameters have a trade-off relation.