NONELECTRONIC PROPERTIES OF SEMICONDUCTORS (ATOMIC STRUCTURE, DIFFUSION) Kinetics of Crack Formation in Porous Silicon

Porous silicon (porSi) is a promising material for microelectronic and optoelectronic devices and for microsystems's technology. Although highly promis� ing, porSi is not widely used in technology. One of the main reasons preventing greater use of porSi is its temporal instability, which eventually leads to the deg� radation of functional structure's operating parame� ters. The properties of porSi depend on many factors and are determined by technological parameters, the initial microstructural characteristics of the porous layer, storage conditions, etc. Structural degradation caused by mechanical stress in a porous layer manifests itself in several ways, one of which is cracking. Ther� modynamically, this is a nonequilibrium and irrevers� ible process; eventually it leads to relaxation of the porous silicon structure.