Application of VCSELs to Radiation-Tolerant Optical Data Links

A common use of vertical-cavity lasers is fast data transfer, where the transmitted information can be either analog or digital. Present (VCSEL) applications include telecommunications, computer communication and local area networks. In this chapter we will describe an application of VCSELs in a high energy physics experiment called ATLAS [1] at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is under construction at the European Center for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland.