High-performance Ge/Si electro-absorption optical modulator up to 85°C and its highly efficient photodetector operation

We studied a high-speed Ge/Si electro-absorption optical modulator (EAM) evanescently coupled with a Si waveguide of a lateral p–n junction for a high-bandwidth optical interconnect over a wide range of temperatures from 25 °C to 85 °C. We demonstrated 56 Gbps high-speed operation at temperatures up to 85 °C. From the photoluminescence spectra, we confirmed that the bandgap energy dependence on temperature is relatively small, which is consistent with the shift in the operation wavelengths with increasing temperature for a Ge/Si EAM. We also demonstrated that the same device operates as a high-speed and high-efficiency Ge photodetector with the Franz-Keldysh (F-K) and avalanche-multiplication effects. These results demonstrate that the Ge/Si stacked structure is promising for both high-performance optical modulators and photodetectors integrated on Si platforms

Direct Bandgap Control by Narrowing the Germanium Strip Structure on Silicon for C+L Band Photonic Devices

This study reports the bandgap engineering of a Ge epitaxial layer on Si to tune the operating wavelength of optical intensity modulators and photodetectors in the C (1.530–1.565μm)+L (1.565–1.625 μm) band. A strip structure of elemental Ge is investigated, rather than wider-gap SiGe or narrower-gap GeSn alloy, to achieve the key property of a C band modulation and improved L band detection. By narrowing the strip to the submicron scale, a tensile lattice strain in Ge, induced by a thermal expansion mismatch with Si, is elastically relaxed by an edge-induced relaxation effect. The photoluminescence peak and photodetection spectra show a significant blue shift as the narrowed direct gap of ~0.77 eV is restored to 0.80 eV of unstrained Ge. A standard SiNx external stressor on a narrow Ge strip induces an increased blue shift or an opposite red shift, depending on the stress polarity in SiNx. The results show that it is possible to tune the operating wavelength of modulators and photodetectors of elemental Ge in the C+L band