We propose and experimentally demonstrate capacitive actuation of a graphene–silicon micro-ring add/drop filter. The mechanism is based on a silicon–SiO2–graphene capacitor on top of the ring waveguide. We show the capacitive actuation of the add/drop functionality by a voltage-driven change of the graphene optical absorption. The proposed capacitive solution overcomes the need for continuous heating to keep tuned the filter’s in/out resonance and therefore eliminates “in operation” energy consumption.

In this paper we report TE-mode phase modulation obtained by inducing a capacitive charge on graphene layers embedded in the core of a waveguide. There is a biasing regime in which graphene absorption is negligible but large index variations can be achieved with a voltage–length product as small as VπLπ~0.07 V cm for straight waveguides and VπLπ~0.0024 V cm for 12 μm radius microring resonators. This phase modulation device uniquely enables a small signal amplitude <1 V with a micrometer-sized footprint for compatibility with CMOS circuit integration. Examples of phase-induced changes are computed for straight waveguides and for microring resonators, showing the possibility of implementing several optoelectronic functionalities as modulators, tunable filters, and switches.