Light emission from highly reflective porous silicon multilayer structures

Porous silicon photoluminescence and electroluminescence can be controlled by periodically modulating the material porosity to form high quality multilayer stacks and microcavities. Important issues not yet fully addressed are (a) the precise role played by this microstructuring, given that the luminescence is distributed throughout the entire structure and that the low porosity layers are highly absorbing at short wavelengths, and (b) whether the quality of such microcavities could be sufficient to support lasing. Using both experimental and theoretical techniques, the emission and reflection properties of different porous silicon single and multilayer structures have been investigated in order to understand further and exploit the nature of light propagation within them.