In one embodiment, a surgical instrument includes a housing linkable with a manipulator arm of a robotic surgical system, a shaft operably coupled to the housing, a force transducer on a distal end of the shaft, and a plurality of fiber optic strain gauges on the force transducer. In one example, the plurality of strain gauges are operably coupled to a fiber optic splitter or an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer. A fiber optic connector is operably coupled to the fiber optic splitter or the AWG multiplexer. A wrist joint is operably coupled to a distal end of the force transducer, and an end effector is operably coupled to the wrist joint. In another embodiment, a robotic surgical manipulator includes a base link operably coupled to a distal end of a manipulator positioning system, and a distal link movably coupled to the base link, wherein the distal link includes an instrument interface and a fiber optic connector optically linkable to a surgical instrument. A method of passing data between an instrument and a manipulator via optical connectors is also provided.