Mesoporous silicon

Abstract

Many physical properties of mesoporous silicon are intimately related to details of the structural organization of its silicon skeleton. This information can hardly be accessed directly but can be deduced by studying the complementary pore space surrounding this skeleton. By profiting from the potentials of nuclear magnetic resonance cryoporometry to probe fine details of the pore structure in mesoporous silicon, the results of systematic studies of the correlations between the fabrication conditions by electrochemical etching and the resulting mesostructure are presented. A deeper insight into advanced fabrication methods aimed at structure improvement and microstructure design is provided.