Macroporous silicon and its application in sensing

Periodic silicon nanostructures can be used for different kinds of gas sensors depending on the analyte concentration. First, we present an optical gas sensor based on the classical non-dispersive infrared technique for ppm-concentration using ultra-compact photonic crystal gas cells (Pergande et al., 2011) [1]. It is conceptually based on low group velocities inside a photonic crystal gas cell and anti-reflection layers coupling light into the device. Secondly, we report on silicon nanotip arrays (Gesemann et al., 2011) [2], suitable for gas ionization in ion mobility microspectrometers (micro-IMS) having detection ranges in principle down to the ppt-range. Such instruments allow the detection of explosives, chemical warfare agents, and illicit drugs, e.g., at airports. Third of all, we describe the thermal emission properties of heated silicon photonic crystals (Gesemann et al., 2010) [3], revealing a photonic stop gap effect or strong silicon oxide emission, depending on the setup. All silicon microstructures have been fabricated by photo-electrochemical etching of silicon.