Analysis of the effect of transverse modes on free-space optical interconnect performance

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and microlenses can be used to implement free space optical interconnects (FSOIs) which do not suffer from the bandwidth limitations inherent in metallic interconnects. A comprehensive link equation describing the effects of both optical and electrical noise is introduced. We have evaluated FSOI performance by examining the following metrics: the space-bandwidth product (SBP), describing the density of channels and aggregate bandwidth that can be achieved, and the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR), which represents the relative strength of the carrier signal. The mode expansion method (MEM) was used to account for the primary cause of optical noise: laser beam diffraction. While the literature commonly assumes an ideal single-mode laser beam, we consider the experimentally determined multimodal structure of a VCSEL beam in our calculations. It was found that maximum achievable interconnect length and density for a given CNR was significantly reduced when the higher order transverse modes were present in Simulations. However, the Simulations demonstrate that free-space optical interconnects are still a suitable solution for the communications bottleneck, despite the adverse effects introduced by transverse modes.

Critical behavior of one-particle spectral weights in the transverse Ising model

We investigate the critical behavior of the spectral weight of a single quasiparticle, one of the key observables in experiment, for the particular case of the transverse Ising model. Series expansions are calculated for the linear chain and the square and simple cubic lattices. For the chain model, a conjectured exact result is discovered. For the square and simple cubic lattices, series analyses are used to estimate the critical exponents. The results agree with the general predictions of Sachdev [Quantum Phase Transitions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1999)].