Optical characterization of one‐dimensional porous silicon photonic crystals with effective refractive index gradient in depth

In this paper, we report the results of the investigation about the optical properties of one-dimensional photonic crystals based on porous silicon multilayer structures having unit cells with optical properties that vary as a function of the device thickness. These devices were obtained by anodizing crystalline silicon in electrolyte aqueous solution of HF at different concentrations. The effective refractive index and extinction coefficients, of porous silicon layers of unit cells had been obtained by fitting the experimental reflectance spectra using the transfer matrix method. The effective–refractive indexes, for devices obtained in electrolyte solution of high HF concentration, were shown to have a significant gradient in the depth of the layers, whereas it was low (negligible) for devices obtained in electrolyte solution with low HF concentration, but the mechanical stability of these latter devices is poor. It was found that this fragility depends on the layer number and upon their physical thicknesses ratio.