LIGHT-EMISSION PROPERTIES OF POROUS SILICON

Visible light emission in porous silicon is of current interest both scientifically and technologically. Since this system can exhibit a wide variety of structures and particle sizes, however, a large volume of data exists, which at times can be quite contradictory. In this paper, a review of the general properties of porous silicon that have been reported thus far will be given, along with a discussion of the possible mechanisms for the luminescence process. The model of quantum confinement, amorphous silicon luminescence, a polysilane mechanism and the siloxene model will be discussed, along with the support for and drawbacks of each particular model.