Classification of electrical properties of porous silicon

The classification of electrical properties of porous silicon is performed on the basis of differences in the structure of this material and in the processes of formation of the regions depleted of charge carriers. It is shown that porous silicon as a class can be subclassified into four groups, each of which has a specific set of characteristic features. For each group, the most probable properties of metal/(porous silicon) and (porous silicon)/(single-crystalline silicon) junctions are described. It is shown that the diversity of electrical properties of porous silicon and its contacts with metallic electrode and silicon substrate brings about the experimentally observed wide set of characteristics of multilayer structures with porous silicon layers. (C) 2000 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".