Porous silicon multilayer stacks for optical biosensing applications

Porous silicon (PS) multilayer stacks were developed for their use as interference filters in the visible range. The optical behavior of these structures was previously simulated by the use of a computational program, from which the optical constants and thickness of the individual PS layers were determined. The possibility of using these structures as biosensors has been explored, based on the significant changes in the reflectance spectra before and after exposing the PS multilayer to proteins (antibodies). In particular, it is shown that there is a notably reduction of reflectance from PS structures when this material is exposed to polyclonal mouse antibodies. Thus, the experimental results open the possibility of developing biosensors based on the variation of the shape and/or position of the optical or photoluminescent spectrum from PS. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.