Porous silicon formation by hole injection from a back side p⁺/n junction for electrical insulation applications

Abstract

In this paper, we propose to study the formation of porous silicon (PS) in low doped (1 × 10 14 cm −3 ) n-type silicon through hole injection from a back side p + /n junction in the dark. This technique is investigated within the framework of electrical insulation. Three different types of junctions are investigated. The first one is an epitaxial n-type layer grown on p + doped silicon wafer. The two other junctions are carried out by boron diffusion leading to p + regions with junction depths of 20 and 115 μm. The resulting PS morphology is a double layer with a nucleation layer (NL) and macropores fully filled with mesoporous material. This result is unusual for low doped n-type silicon. Morphology variations are described depending on the junction formation process, the electrolyte composition, the anodization current density and duration. In order to validate the more interesting industrial potentialities of the p + /n injection technique, a comparison is achieved with back side illumination in terms of resulting morphology and experiments confirm comparable results. Electrical characterizations of the double layer, including NL and fully filled macropores, are then performed. To our knowledge, this is the first electrical investigation in low doped n type silicon with this morphology. Compared to the bulk silicon, the measured electrical resistivities are 6-7 orders of magnitude higher at 373 K.

Fabrication, Boron Leaching, and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy of Nanoporous P-Type Silicon

“…Due to its excellent electrical, tunable morphology, mechanical, and thermal properties, it has emerged in many other applications including electrical isolation and microelectronics. [5] [6] and photonics [7]. Moreover, NPS is used in sensor technology [8] [9] [10].…”