Highly-sensitive anisotropic porous silicon based optical sensors

The modeling, fabrication and characterization of PSi fabricated from both (110) and (100) surface oriented silicon for optical sensing is thoroughly reported. First, based on the generalized Bruggeman method, the birefringence and sensitivity of the fabricated membranes were calculated as a function of the fabrication parameters such as porosity and pore sizes; and external effects, such as the pores surface oxidation. Thereafter we report on the fabrication of PSi membranes from (110) and (100) surface oriented silicon with pore sizes in the range of 50-80 nm, and the characterization of their birefringence using a polarimetric setup. Their sensitivities were determined by filling the pores with several liquids having different refractive index. As a result, sensitivities as high as 1407 nm/RIU were obtained for the (110) samples at a 1500 nm wavelength and 382 nm/RIU for the (100) samples at the same wavelength.