Radiation-Hard Optical Link for SLHC

We study the feasibility of fabricating an optical link for the SLHC ATLAS silicon tracker based on the current pixel optical link architecture. The electrical signals between the current pixel modules and the optical modules are transmitted via micro-twisted cables. The optical signals between the optical modules and the data acquisition system are transmitted via rad-hard SIMM fibres spliced to rad-tolerant GRIN fibres. The link has several nice features. We have measured the bandwidths of the transmission lines and the results indicate that the micro twisted-pair cables can transmit signals up to ~ 1 Gb/s. The fusion spliced fibre ribbon can transmit signals up to ~ 2 Gb/s as reported in the previous conference. We have irradiated VCSEL arrays with 24 GeV protons and find four types of VCSEL arrays from three vendors survive to the SLHC dosage. We have also demonstrated the feasibility of fabricating a novel opto-pack for housing VCSEL and PIN arrays with BeO as the substrate.