Bias effects on the electro-optic response of Ge-on-Si waveguide photodetectors

Silicon photonics, allowing for the integration of optoelectronic components into CMOS-compatible platforms, has shown great promise in the development of next-generation telecommunication systems and fast, low-power data interconnects. Within this framework, the increasing transistor integration and power dissipation density has led, during the last decades, to a steady decrease of the CMOS bias voltages. This trend may also affect the operation of silicon photonics components: the present work is focused on the effects of lower bias in Ge-on-Si waveguide photodetectors (WPDs), using the electro-optic (EO) frequency response as a figure of merit.