We report mid-infrared Ge-on-Si waveguide-based PIN diode modulators operating at wavelengths of 3.8 and 8 μm. Fabricated 1-mm-long electro-absorption devices exhibit a modulation depth of >35 dB with a 7 V forward bias at 3.8 μm, and a similar 1-mm-long Mach–Zehnder modulator has a Vπ·L of 0.47 V·cm. Driven by a 2.5Vpp RF signal, 60 MHz on-off keying modulation was demonstrated. Electro-absorption modulation at 8 μm was demonstrated preliminarily, with the device performance limited by large contact separation and high contact resistance.

Near-infrared germanium (Ge) photodetectors monolithically integrated on top of silicon-on-insulator substrates are universally regarded as key enablers towards chip-scale nanophotonics, with applications ranging from sensing and health monitoring to object recognition and optical communications. In this work, we report on the high-data-rate performance pin waveguide photodetectors made of a lateral hetero-structured silicon-Ge-silicon (Si-Ge-Si) junction operating under low reverse bias at 1.55 μm. The pin photodetector integration scheme considerably eases device manufacturing and is fully compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. In particular, the hetero-structured Si-Ge-Si photodetectors show efficiency-bandwidth products of ～9 GHz at ?1 V and ～30 GHz at ?3 V, with a leakage dark current as low as ～150 nA, allowing superior signal detection of high-speed data traffic. A bit-error rate of 10?9 is achieved for conventional 10 Gbps, 20 Gbps, and 25 Gbps data rates, yielding optical power sensitivities of ?13.85 dBm, ?12.70 dBm, and ?11.25 dBm, respectively. This demonstration opens up new horizons towards cost-effective Ge pin waveguide photodetectors that combine fast device operation at low voltages with standard semiconductor fabrication processes, as desired for reliable on-chip architectures in next-generation nanophotonics integrated circuits.