GAS-SENSING PROPERTIES OF POROUS SILICON

Conductivity of porous silicon layers (p-type) has been investigated for organic vapor sensing. A many orders of magnitude increase in conductivity in response to a vapor pressure change from 0 to 100% has been measured for some compounds. The conductivity (at a constant pressure) varies exponentially with the compound's dipole moment. The temporal response of the porous silicon layers is in the seconds range, and the recovery is much slower (minutes). However, due to the tremendous conductivity changes and the low background noise, a complete recovery is not needed for sensing purposes. The mechanism of conductivity enhancement has been studied using several methods. It is attributed to an increase in the density of charge carriers. An additional mechanism based on increased diffusivity may take place in microporous silicon. The observed characteristics suggest the application of porous silicon to future chemical sensors. The sensors have the potential to be integrated monolithically with other silicon devices using current technologies.