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Two of the most important properties of a porous silicon multilayer for photonic applications are flat interfaces and a relative large refractive index contrast between layers in the optical wavelength range. In this work, we studied the effect of the current density and HF electrolyte concentration on the refractive index of porous silicon. With the purpose of increasing the refractive index contrast in a multilayer, the refractive index of porous silicon produced at low current was studied in detail. The current density applied to produce the low porosity layers was limited in order to keep the electrolyte flow through the multilayer structure and to avoid deformation of layer interfaces. We found that an electrolyte composed of hydrofluoric acid, ethanol and glycerin in a ratio of 3:7:1 gives a refractive index contrast around 1.3/2.8 at 600 nm. Several multilayer structures with this refractive index contrast were fabricated, such as dielectric Bragg mirrors and microcavities. Reflectance spectra of the structures show the photonic quality of porous silicon multilayers produced under these electrochemical conditions. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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Optical tweezers is an example how to use light to generate a physical force. They have been used to levitate viruses, bacteria, cells, and sub cellular organisms. Nonetheless it would be beneficial to use such force to develop a new kind of applications. However the radiation pressure usually is small to think in moving larger objects. Currently, there is some research investigating novel photonic working principles to generate a higher force. Here, we studied theoretically and experimentally the induction of electromagnetic forces in one-dimensional photonic crystals when light impinges on the off-axis direction. The photonic structure consists of a micro-cavity like structure formed of two one-dimensional photonic crystals made of free-standing porous silicon, separated by a variable air gap and the working wavelength is 633 nm. We show experimental evidence of this force when the photonic structure is capable of making auto-oscillations and forced-oscillations. We measured peak displacements and velocities ranging from 2 up to 35 microns and 0.4 up to 2.1 mm/s with a power of 13 mW. Recent evidence showed that giant resonant light forces could induce average velocity values of 0.45 mm/s in microspheres embedded in water with 43 mW light power.

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We induced mechanical self-oscillations in a microcavity structure made of porous silicon onedimensional photonic crystals (PSi-1DPC) with an air gap. The electromagnetic force generated within the whole photonic structure, by light with a wavelength of 633 nm, is enough to overcome energy losses and sustain selfoscillations. From these mechano-optical measurements we estimated the stiffness and Young’s modulus of porous silicon and compared the results with values reported elsewhere and with values estimated herein by a mechanical method.We obtained good agreement between all values.

Emission signal from fluorescent molecules (fluorescein-5-maleimide) in a porous silicon mirror is enhanced by tuning the pore size and reflectance spectrum of the porous silicon multilayer structure. This is achieved when the reflectance spectrum of the silicon mirror overlaps the fluorescent excitation and emission wavelengths of the fluorescent molecule, and chemical linkers assure the molecular confinement.