Investigations of Oxidation Dependence on Type of Porous Silicon Near Room Temperature by Isothermal Microcalorimeter

Abstract

AbstractOxidation of porous silicon has been studied using thermal activity monitoring, i.e. isothermal microcalorimeter. It was found that, at room temperature (25 °C) the micro-calorimetric signal from the oxidation of the p+-type porous silicon (PS) reduces exponentially, while in the case of n-type PS, the signal starts to increase slowly, reaching its highest value after some hours. This kind of behaviour is typical of autocatalytic reactions. To clarify the origin of the difference, we varied the preparation parameters of the porous silicon. We determined the activation energy from the measurements near the room temperature (25–70 °C). The results of this research have been compared with the previous observations and the possible origin of the difference has been discussed.