Giant electro-optic effect in Ge/SiGe coupled quantum wells

Silicon-based photonics is now considered as the photonic platform for the next generation of on-chip communications. However, the development of compact and low power consumption optical modulators is still challenging. Here we report a giant electro-optic effect in Ge/SiGe coupled quantum wells. This promising effect is based on an anomalous quantum-confined Stark effect due to the separate confinement of electrons and holes in the Ge/SiGe coupled quantum wells. This phenomenon can be exploited to strongly enhance optical modulator performance with respect to the standard approaches developed so far in silicon photonics. We have measured a refractive index variation up to 2.3 × 10(−3) under a bias voltage of 1.5 V, with an associated modulation efficiency V(π)L(π) of 0.046 V cm. This demonstration paves the way for the development of efficient and high-speed phase modulators based on the Ge/SiGe material system.