Gbit/s Data Transmission on Carbon Fibres

TL;DR

This paper explores the feasibility of using carbon fiber cables for high-speed data transmission in particle physics detectors, demonstrating over 1 Gbit/s data rates with low error rates and modeling their electrical characteristics.

Contribution

It presents initial experimental results and modeling of carbon fiber cables for multi-Gbit/s data transmission near particle collision points.

Findings

Data rates beyond 1 Gbit/s over 1 meter with low error rates

Electrical characteristics modeled with Spice simulations

Potential for integration into detector components

Abstract

Data transmission at the upgraded Large Hadron Collider experiments, foreseen for mid 2020s will be in the multi Gbit/s range per connection for the innermost detector layers. This paper reports on first tests on the possible use of carbon cables for electrical data transmission close to the interaction point. Carbon cables have the potential advantage of being light, having a low activation and easy integration into the detector components close to the interaction point. In these tests commercially available carbon cables were used, in which the filaments had a very thin nickel coating. For these cables data rates beyond 1 Gbit/s over more than 1m with an error rate of less than 10^{-12} could be transmitted. The characteristics of the cables have been measured in terms of S-parameters and could be reproduced with a Spice model. Some outlook on potential further improvements is presented.