Hybrid free space fiber backplane

A circuit card, comprising:

• a circuit disposed thereon;
• and
• one or more optical elements disposed thereon, the one or more optical elements being capable of communicating with the circuit and one or more other circuit cards via an optical link disposed in proximity to the circuit card, wherein at least a portion of the optical signal comprises light capable of traveling in a free space region between the optical link and the one or more optical elements without requiring a physical connection between the optical link and the one or more optical elements;
• wherein one or more of the optical elements are disposed on a photonic integrated circuit of the circuit card, the photonic integrated circuit being capable of implementing wavelength division multiplexing dense wavelength division multiplexing or optical time division multiplexing or combinations thereof.