Study of porous silicon structure by Raman scattering

In this paper, the effect of etching time on light emitting porous silicon has been studied by using Raman scattering. Enhancement of Raman intensity by increasing the porosity is observed. Also there is a red shift, about 4 cm⁻¹, from the Raman peak of crystalline silicon to that of porous silicon. The phonon confinement model suggests the existence of spherical nanocrystalline silicon with diameter around 7 nm. But SEM images show that the samples have a sheetlike structure that confines phonons in one dimension. This should not cause any shift in their Raman spectra. It is suggested that the observed Raman peak shift is due to the spherical nanocrystals on the surface of these sheets.