An in-situ monitoring system for characterizing porous silicon growth

David Wyndham; Tim James; Gene Lim; Gia Parish; Charlie Musca; Adrian Keating

doi:10.1117/12.817420

30 December 2008 An in-situ monitoring system for characterizing porous silicon growth

David Wyndham, Tim James, Gene Lim, Gia Parish, Charlie Musca, Adrian Keating

Proceedings Volume 7267, Smart Materials V; 72670R (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.817420
Event: SPIE Smart Materials, Nano- and Micro-Smart Systems, 2008, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

The production of high quality optical devices based on porous silicon relies on having precise control over the refractive index and thickness of each porous silicon layer. Until now this has been achieved by pre-calibrating each growth system and making sure that parameters such as wafer doping, electrolyte concentration and temperature are kept constant with each fabrication. However low doped silicon required for IR based silicon photonics has significant non-uniformity in the index and growth rate during formation of the porous silicon. The solution we have developed is based on realtime in-situ monitoring of low-doped silicon during porous silicon growth. This process rapidly measures the optical interference between the porous silicon film and the backside silicon surface. The optical light source comes from six coarse-wavelength-division-multiplexed lasers, with rapid switching between wavelengths achieved using a microelectromechanical switch. The system permits rapid measurement (<1 sec) of the reflection spectra from all lasers, enabling real-time thickness and refractive index of each layer to be determined during growth. Our aim is to enable growth of high quality multi-layer films such as those required for Bragg Reflectors and high-Q Fabry-Perot microcavities. In this paper we briefly describe the instrument, the numerical models developed to gather the measurements, and show preliminary results gathered from this instrument during growth. The results show a good agreement with theoretical optical modelling, and also direct measurements of the porous silicon layers.

Citation Download Citation

David Wyndham, Tim James, Gene Lim, Gia Parish, Charlie Musca, and Adrian Keating "An in-situ monitoring system for characterizing porous silicon growth", Proc. SPIE 7267, Smart Materials V, 72670R (30 December 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.817420

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
9 PAGES

DOWNLOAD PAPER SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Get copyright permission Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace

KEYWORDS

Silicon

Refractive index

Silicon films

Semiconducting wafers

Reflectivity

Etching

Data modeling

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years