Silicon nitride waveguide-integrated Ge/SiGe quantum wells optical modulator

Abstract

Silicon-based photonics has generated a strong interest in recent years, mainly for optical interconnects and sensing on photonic integrated circuits. The main rationales of silicon photonics are the reduction of energy consumption and photonic system costs via integration on a standard Si chip. Waveguide-integrated silicon based-optoelectronic modulators have been particularly studied as a key building block. Ge-rich Ge/SiGe quantum well waveguides are promising for compact and low energy consumption modulators thanks to the demonstration of direct gap related optical transitions in these structures, while silicon nitride (SiN) waveguide could be a promising alternative to Si waveguide. This paper studies an integration approach between passive SiN waveguide and active Ge/SiGe multiple quantum wells (MQWs) optoelectronic modulators. Photocurrent measurements at different bias voltages demonstrated strong optical modulation within the O-band wavelength (1.26 - 1.36 μm) from Ge/SiGe MQWs, while 3D-FDTD calculations confirm a compact and efficient integration with SiN waveguide on Si wafer.