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Porous silicon microspheres: synthesis, characterization and application to photonic microcavities

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Journal of Materials Chemistry · Journal article · 14 May 2010

R. Fenollosa, F. Ramiro-Manzano, M. Tymczenko and F. Meseguer

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Volume 20

Pages 5210-5214

2010

Abstract

Porous silicon microspheres have been synthesized by chemical vapour deposition of disilane gas. Their spectral signatures are similar to those of electrochemically grown porous silicon, in particular they yield photoluminescence and they show an oxidation behaviour upon their exposure to the open air. The particles are highly spherical and poly-disperse in size with diameters of approximately 0.5 to 5 micrometres, and they have a very smooth surface. Because of these reasons they work as optical microcavities with well defined resonating Mie modes. These modes have been identified in the near-infrared range. They blue-shift considerably whenever the microspheres are in contact with air because of the aforementioned oxidation process.

How to cite

Initials first

R. Fenollosa, F. Ramiro-Manzano, M. Tymczenko and F. Meseguer. “Porous silicon microspheres: synthesis, characterization and application to photonic microcavities.” J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010). DOI: 10.1039/C0JM00079E.

Family name first

Fenollosa, R., Ramiro-Manzano, F., Tymczenko, M. and Meseguer, F. “Porous silicon microspheres: synthesis, characterization and application to photonic microcavities.” J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010). DOI: 10.1039/C0JM00079E.

Article access and reuse

The subscription Version of Record is not hosted here. RSC states that an author may reproduce figures and diagrams from their own article without requesting permission when correct acknowledgement is given. The figures below are the original compositions extracted from the article PDF and carry full source acknowledgement.

Figures

Figure 1. Optical microscopy images at 1000× magnification showing: (a) porous silicon microspheres obtained by decomposing disilane at 400 °C during 1 min and 30 s; the inset is a magnified single microsphere; (b) a:Si-H microspheres synthesized at 400 °C for 5 min; and (c) an SEM image at 45,000× magnification of a porous silicon microsphere approximately 2 µm in diameter, illustrating its spherical perfection and smooth surface.

From R. Fenollosa et al., J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010), DOI 10.1039/C0JM00079E. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010. Reproduced by an author with acknowledgement.

Absorbance and photoluminescence spectra of porous silicon microspheres
Figure 2. Spectral signatures of porous silicon microspheres. (a) Mid-infrared optical absorbance spectra after exposure to open air for several minutes, 2 h and 120 h. (b) Photoluminescence spectrum of a cluster of porous silicon microspheres after several days of exposure to open air.

From R. Fenollosa et al., J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010), DOI 10.1039/C0JM00079E. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010. Reproduced by an author with acknowledgement.

Figure 3. (a) TEM and (b) HRTEM images of crushed porous silicon microspheres. White boundaries surrounding darker areas of about 10 nm correspond to pores. The HRTEM image indicates sub-nanometre pore widths and a polycrystalline nature partly hidden by an amorphous oxide layer.

From R. Fenollosa et al., J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010), DOI 10.1039/C0JM00079E. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010. Reproduced by an author with acknowledgement.

Figure 4. (a) Optical transmittance spectra illustrating the blue shift of resonating modes after exposure to open air. (b) Experimental mode position versus exposure time for the mode marked by the grey strip in (a); the inset shows the derivative of the experimental data.

From R. Fenollosa et al., J. Mater. Chem. 20, 5210-5214 (2010), DOI 10.1039/C0JM00079E. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010. Reproduced by an author with acknowledgement.

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