Photonic cavity mode tuning in porous silicon-based microcavities by He+ and H+ ion irradiation

The present investigation reports the optical characteristics of the porous Si (PSi) based microcavities before and after energetic He+ and H+ ion irradiations. These PSi microcavities were fabricated by the galvanostatic electrochemical etching process and irradiated with 35 keV He+ and H+ ions with three different ion fluences: 1 x 10(15), 5 x 10(15), and 1 x 10(16) ions/cm(2). Significant color contrast is evident in the reflection images after ion irradiation. These reflection spectra of the optical microcavities are systematically investigated before and after ion irradiations. The dominant resonant cavity peak of the microcavity shows a notable shift of similar to 28-48 and similar to 17-26 nm toward the higher wavelength region with He+ and H+ ion irradiations at various ion fluences, respectively. The relative changes in the cavity wavelengths are about similar to 5%-10% and similar to 3%-5% for He+ and H+ ion irradiations, respectively. The redshift in the reflectance spectra is attributed to modification in the refractive index of microcavities induced by He+ and H+ ions. These experimental results compare well with the ion propagation and transfer matrix method simulations. The observed changes in the optical properties arise due to surface modification of the Si-Si and Si-O bonds and thereby refractive index modification of individual PSi layers of the microcavity. This study establishes that low-energetic ions produce broadly optically tunable and photonic structures suitable for optoelectronic applications. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.