Bias-Modulated Electronically-Tunable Optoelectronic Chromatic Dispersion in Ge PN Photodiodes

Abstract

Optoelectronic Chromatic Dispersion (OED) is a source of significant wavelength-dependent current in photodiodes, offering a pathway to computational spectroscopy in a photodiode-only platform without the need for additional optical or mechanical components. Previous studies have activated OED through light modulation. Here, we present a theoretical and experimental investigation of bias-modulated OED in the C- and L-bands in a Ge PN photodiode, where the applied bias voltage is modulated sinusoidally, and the optical illumination is held constant. The spectral response is due to wavelength-dependent optical absorption together with bias-dependent competition between carrier drift, displacement current, and mobile-charge screening. With the RF phase-shift technique, the maximum measured OED sensitivity is +4.13 deg/nm in the L-band, significantly larger than that of light-modulated OED in Ge. The 15 mdeg phase-noise floor yields a spectral resolution of 3.6 pm. These results establish bm-OED as an electronically reconfigurable dispersive mechanism for applications in chip-scale computational spectrometers, photonic integrated circuits (PICs), on-chip RF photonics, and wavelength-division multiplexing.