Radiation-tolerant optical links for the ATLAS inner detector

Abstract

ATLAS is one of the large particle detectors at the Large Hadron Collider, which will become operational in 2006. The data from the ATLAS semiconductor tracker and pixel detector to the acquisition electronics will be transferred via radiation-tolerant optical links. The overall architecture and the performance of these optical data links are described. A major focus is the radiation tolerance of the single components and the behavior of the optical links in an ATLAS-like environment.Index Terms-ATLAS, irradiation damage, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), PIN photodiodes, single event upsets, vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL).