Photoluminescence and AFM characterisation of photochemically etched highly resistive n-type silicon

A light-emitting layer has been made on highly resistive n-type silicon (6.4 kcm) using photochemical etching in a mixture of HF with H2O2. The morphology of the porous films grown after exposure to a He-Ne laser (633 nm) at normal incidence was analysed by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The results show that the film obtained are porous and the morphology of the porous layer obtained are shown to be similar to that obtained by the electrochemical method on highly doped silicon. Furthermore, excitation of the porous silicon layer formed on highly resistive silicon samples under He-Cd laser (325 nm) irradiation shows that the PL intensity increases with increasing etching time. The maximum PL spectrum peaked at 636 nm with a FWHM of about 0.3 eV. Finally, the quantum confinement effect has been invoked to explain the bright, visible, room temperature PL of porous silicon (PS).