Mechanism of primary self-organization in porous silicon with a regular structure

Abstract

A mechanism for self-organization of a regular system of pores in porous silicon is proposed. According to this mechanism, the self-organization obeys the general kinetic laws for a system of charge carriers. The mean interpore spacing in porous silicon prepared from p-Si and the anodizing current density required for synthesizing porous silicon through anodic etching are evaluated in terms of the proposed mechanism. The results obtained are in good agreement with the available experimental data. The dependence of the mean interpore spacing on the carrier concentration in the initial silicon is predicted to be similar to the function L(n) ∼ n−1/2. The validity of the proposed mechanism is confirmed by computer simulation.