THIN-LAYERS AND MULTILAYERS OF POROUS SILICON - X-RAY-DIFFRACTION INVESTIGATION

Porous silicon is a unique example of a porous material exhibiting the properties of a nearly perfect single crystal. High resolution x-ray diffraction has been used to investigate thin p(-) and p(+) type porou s silicon layers in the 100-1000-nm-thickness range; Since several thi ckness fringes are observed, the comparison between experimental resul ts and simulations enables one to deduce information about the main st ructural parameters such as porosity, lattice parameter, thickness, an d heterotransition width. Porous silicon multilayers have also been in vestigated: some satellites an clearly observed. The obtained results are then compared and discussed with the literature. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(98)04511-3].