Abstract

In this paper we will consider the design of optoelectronic transceiver systems. In particular we will examine the interdependency of channel frequency and parallelism for systems which are based on the of use optical emitters such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs). It is generally assumed that VCSELs are the most desirable type of optical emitters and that as threshold currents continue to be reduced these elements will be employed in large arrays for freespace data transmission. We will show however that when the effects of power dissipation and receiver sensitivity are taken into account the performance of VCSELs is not significantly better than that of other, less efficient, emitter structures and that in some regimes it will be worse. This conclusion is also supported by the work of Psaltis et al [1] in the design of GaAs optoelectronic neurons. In contrast with previous studies of the scalability of optoelectronic parallel data transmission systems [2-4] we employ a sufficiently simple model of a transceiver which enables us to close the loop between the transmission and detection of signals. Taking arrays of PnpN optoelectronic thyristors [5] as an example we will show that there exists an optimal current which should be driven through an emitter in order to maximize the total bandwidth as a function of device density.

© 1997 Optical Society of America