Formation of porous silicon on patterned substrates

Application of porous silicon in device structures requires the formation of micron-size porous areas. Therefore, selective area anodization on photolithographically patterned p-doped substrates was investigated. As shown in this work, porosity and layer thickness vary from the edge to the middle of the structures. This inhomogeneity strongly depends on the doping level of the substrate and the lateral size of the structure. When organic photoresists are used, an anisotropic undercutting of up to several 10 mu m occurs at the edge of the structures. This can largely be reduced by using thermally treated Si3N4 deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition as a masking layer. In this case an isotropic undercutting of the masking layer is observed permitting fabrication of porous silicon structures in the mu m range by photolithography.