That means there is some way to speed the Rise time of this component, for example? Reducing 7us to Something faster?
Yes, reverse bias it. Also note that the quoted 7 us is with a 1K resistor load, so it would be 0.7 us with a 100 Ohm load. You probably don't need a 1 cm x 1 cm area, either.
But even 7 us rise time should be more than fast enough for your application, especially if you are using a 16 MHz Arduino.