Optimising porous silicon electrical properties for thermal sensing applications

Present day sensing elements used in thermo-resistive type uncooled detectors or bolometers either suffer from material incompatibility issues have relatively poor performance the long wave infrared region (LWIR). This work explores potential of meso-porous silicon films as base for element these bolometer applications. The highly sensitive depends on electrical properties, specifically resistivity and temperature coefficient resistance (TCR), element. In this work, we explore properties optimize through fabrication conditions surface treatment. We further compare TCR values single multi-layer porous use multilayers to fabricate selective distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) LWIR detector experimental results show that a low value along with high can be obtained by altering porosity passivation films. measured within three-layer film (DBR stack) 6%/K, which is significantly higher than contemporary materials. Our studies indicate potentially overcome compatibility associated existing technologies such amorphous vanadium oxide LWIR.