Surface States and Effective Surface Area on Photoluminescent P-Type Porous Silicon

The present study is motivated by the possibility of utilizing porous silicon for spectral sensors. Pulse measurements on the porous-Si/electrolyte system are employed to determine the surface effective area and the surface-state density at various stages of the anodization process used to produce the porous material. Such measurements were combined with studies of the photoluminescence spectra. These spectra were found to shift progressively to the blue as a function of anodization time. The luminescence intensity increases initially with anodization time, reaches a maximum and then decreases with further anodization. The surface state density, on the other hand, increases with anodization time from an initial value of about 2 x 10(exp 12)/sq cm surface to about 1013 sq cm for the anodized surface. This value is attained already after -2 min anodization and upon further anodization remains fairly constant. In parallel, the effective surface area increases by a factor of 10-30. This behavior is markedly different from the one observed previously for n-type porous Si.