The design of high performance porous silicon light emitting diodes using a photonic band-gap approach

The discovery in 1990 that porous silicon demonstrates efficient photoluminescence in the visible spectrum caused great excitement, largely because it suggested that silicon light emitting devices (LEDs) might be possible. We present a comparison of several different designs of porous silicon microcavity including a single high porosity layer and various multi-layer stack designs chosen to exhibit strong photonic band-gap effects.