On the measurement of the Pockels effect in strained silicon

We measure the voltage-dependent phase shift in silicon waveguides strained by a silicon nitride layer and show that, in our measurements, the phase shift is due to free carrier accumulation inside the waveguides. Nonetheless, inverting the applied voltage also inverts the applied phase shift-an effect due to a quasi-static surface charge in the silicon nitride. Since the measured effect is on the same order as recently published second-order nonlinearities attributed to the Pockels effect, inclusion of these carrier-based effects in the analysis of experimental data is of paramount importance. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America