Structuring of macroporous silicon for applications as photonic crystals

Uniformity and high refractive index contrast make macroporous silicon an ideal two-dimensional photonic crystal, that can be tailored over a wide range of frequencies. For optical transmission measurements the porous silicon has to be structured further. Light has to be coupled in perpendicular to the pore axis and to traverse a well defined number of pore layers. For this purpose a lateral structuring technique has been developed that allows to remove the porous silicon with a precision of less than one pore lattice constant. Bars of macroporous silicon which are 100 mu m high, 2-200 mu m wide and several mm long have been prepared. These bars have been aligned with designed defect structures like linear or bent waveguides in the porous silicon. The achieved samples are well suited to investigate the optical properties of these defects with light traveling perpendicular to the pore axis.