Fabrication of Macroporous on No-Mask Silicon Substrate for Application to Microsystems

Abstract

We applied the anodic etching (i. e. photo assisted electrochemical etching) to the n type silicon substrate of orientation (100) without masking to fabricate macropores penetrated Si substrate. The anodic etching conditions of the macroporous formation were discussed and the effects of the resistivity, voltage, current density, electrolyte concentration and illumination etc. on the pore size and the porosity were investigated. The pores in high aspect ratio through the cross section of the silicon wafer were obtained with polishing and RIE (reactive ion etching) from the back side. It is found that the pore size at the back side is about 1.5 to 2 times larger than that of the front side. Also, as one example of the applications of porous silicon to microsystems, we demonstrate the results obtained in a micro fuel cell system using a porous silicon membrane (PSM). The PSM was fabricated by a porous silicon wafer which was filled with Nafion dispersion solution with ultrasonic vibrations. It was used as a proton conduction membrane by assembling into the H2 / air feed fuel cell at ambient conditions using conventional electrodes. We found that the Nafion filled PSM worked well and a maximum power density of 89.2 mW/cm2 were achieved under the flow rate of 100ml/min for H2 and 200ml/min for air.