Single and Double Fabry–PÉrot Structure Based on Porous Silicon for Chemical Sensors

This paper presents sensing of chemicals using porous silicon as optical sensor fabricated by periodically modulating the porosity of silicon to produce multilayered structures. Single and double Fabry-Perot (FP) structure is designed by using electrochemical anodical etching technique. The operation of chemical sensor is based on the change of effective refractive index of the porous silicon medium, induced by condensation of solvent vapors around the pillars. Resonant wavelengths of single and double multilayer with a microcavity have presented a red shift when exposed to vapor of solvents. On the other hand, resonant wavelength of double FP structure sandwiched with a diffusion layer has presented different optical response when exposed to vapor of solvents. This structure actually has two stop bands with two resonant wavelengths. While of the beginning first and second stop band and resonant wavelength shift together to the infrared region continuously, after awhile second stop band stopped but the first stop band continued to shifting to the infrared region. Time dependence of optical response of proposed structure can be used for identification chemicals.