An optical navigation sensor receives light that is produced by a light source and reflected from a surface. The optical navigation sensor has a silicon substrate having a plurality of photo-sensing regions, each of which receives a portion of the reflected light, and each of which provides a pixel of navigation information. At least one layer of material is deposited on the photo-sensing regions of the silicon substrate during a silicon wafer fabrication process. Each layer has a thickness that causes it to serve as an anti-reflection coating and reduce a percentage of light that is reflected away from the photo-sensing regions of the silicon substrate. A circuit biases each of the photo-sensing regions with a current, the current providing a given responsivity, and the current being less than a current that would be required to provide the given responsivity absent the at least one layer of material.