Blue luminescence from porous layers produced by metal-assisted chemical etching on low-doped silicon

Porous Silicon Formation by Metal Nanoparticle-Assisted Etching

“…The etching can be done in various HF solutions containing an oxidizing agent, typically H 2 O 2 (Li and Bohn 2000;Tsujino and Matsumura 2005a, b, 2006a, 2007Peng et al 2008;Huang et al 2007;Chartier et al 2008;Lee et al 2008;Megouda et al 2009a). Other oxidizing agents such as Fe(NO 3 ) 3 (Peng et al 2005b(Peng et al , 2006b), Mg(NO 3 ) 2 (Peng et al 2006b), Na 2 S 2 O 8 (Hadjersi et al 2004(Hadjersi et al , 2005aDouani et al 2008;Hadjersi 2007), KMnO 4 (Hadjersi et al 2004(Hadjersi et al , 2005aDouani et al 2008), K 2 Cr 2 O 7 (Douani et al 2008;Hadjersi et al 2005b;Waheed et al 2010), KBrO 3 or KIO 3 (Waheed et al 2010), Co(NO 3 ) 2 (Megouda et al 2009b), molecular O 2 dissolved in H 2 O (Yae et al 2003(Yae et al , 2005(Yae et al , 2006(Yae et al , 2008a(Yae et al , b, 2010a(Yae et al , 2012Masayuki et al 2011), and electrical holes, h + by anodization (Zhao et al 2007;Chouroua et al 2010;Huang et al 2010a), are also used. The deposited metals under the form of nanoparticles or colloidal particles or patterned thin film are most generally noble metals such as Ag (Hadjersi et al 2004(Hadjersi et al , 2005bTsujino and Matsumura 2005a, 2007Peng et al 2005...…”

“…Metal-assisted etching is frequently used to prepare photoluminescent porous Si (Dimova-Malinovska et al 1997;Li and Bohn 2000;Harada et al 2001;Chattopadhyay et al 2002;Hadjersi et al 2004, Hadjersi et al 2005bHadjersi 2007;Megouda et al 2009b;Zhao et al 2007;Gorostiza et al 1999;Chattopadhyay and Bohn 2006;Hadjersi and Gabouze 2007;Lipinski et al 2009). MAE displays little crystallographic dependence and can be performed on crystalline or multicrystalline Si substrates, and the various Si morphologies and nanomicrostructures obtained are promising for photovoltaic applications in several areas: antireflective coating (Yae et al 2003(Yae et al , 2005(Yae et al , 2006Peng et al 2005a, b;Benoit et al 2008;Lu and Barron 2013;Tsujino and Matsumura 2006b;Chaoui et al 2008;Nishioka et al 2008Nishioka et al , 2009Srivastava et al 2010;Cao et al 2011;Kim et al 2011Kim et al , 2012Geng et al 2012;Wang et al 2013b;Li et al 2013a), texturization for multicrystalline wafers (Tsujino and Matsumura 2006a;Waheed et al 2010;Branz et al 2009;Li et al 2012;Wan et al 2008;Koynov et al 2006Koynov et al , 2007Lipiński 2008;…”

Metal-assisted etching of p-silicon—Pore formation and characterization

“…The SiF 4 species thus formed are transformed by hydrolysis to SiF 6 2− species. The effect of different concentrations of K 2 Cr 2 O 7 on the porous film formation is presented as Bode plots in Fig.…”

“…The electroless deposited thin metallic film facilitates the chemical etching of the Si surface, and formation of fine pores. The surface metallization of silicon can be performed by various techniques such as sputtering [3], thermal evaporation [6], electrochemical deposition [7] or electroless deposition e.g. Ag [8].…”

Luminescence from porous layers produced by Ag‐assisted electroless etching

“…Using infrared absorption studies, the authors concluded that results make a clear objection to blue-band luminescence models based on adsorbed carbon compounds. Several articles thus proposed defect-based or molecular origins related to the adsorption of hydroxyls [5,6].Recently, Hadjersi et al [7] elaborated photoluminescent porous layers on highly resistive p-type silicon by metal assisted chemical etching method using K 2 Cr 2 O 7 as an oxidizing agent. The authors show that the PL intensity increases with increasing etching time, which can be attributed to the increase of the silicon nanostructures density in agreement with the confinement model prediction.…”