Detection of microwave radiation on porous silicon nanostructures

Abstract

We report on possibility to detect pulsed microwave radiation across the metal/oxide/porous silicon structures and analyse possible physical reasons causing the rise of the emf voltage signal. The n-type porous layers were fabricated according to conventional electrochemical etching procedure, and were exposed to pulsed 10 GHz microwave radiation. The results of investigation show that the porous Si samples have higher by at least one order voltage-to-power sensitivity than the samples without the poro us layer, and are considered to have high potential to increase it further. Free carrier heating phenomenon is considered to be responsible for the signal formation.