Detection of organic solvents by optoelectronic characterization of chemical sensors based on porous silicon multilayered structures

Abstract

Porous silicon multilayered (PSML) structures had been produced by electrochemical-etching of silicon wafers using periodically varied etching current density in an anodization process. PSML-based devices designed with vertical-mode and planar-mode electrodes were fabricated to serve as chemical sensors that applied optoelectronic properties of devices for use of the sensing parameters. Under different biasing configurations, the developed devices responding to specific chemical agents exhibited distinct photoresponse characteristics, corresponding to the refractive index of an individual chemical agent. The proposed PSML-based devices are promising for development of optoelectronically multi-parametric chemical sensors.