Autoelectronic emission of porous silicon

This work presents a study of autoelectronic emission (AEE) from the porous silicon (PS) surface. At the anodic potential over 1:2ÿ2:0 103 V the AEE manifests as the emission from the separate dots of PS±Si cathode. The AEE yield is shown to depend on the ambient temperature, the illumination with photon energy over 0.5 eV and the porosity of PS. The higher porosity of PS layer or anodic potential at the given porosity, the larger number of emitted dots are observed. To stabilise the number of emitted dots the shaping procedure was proposed, which consisted of the reduction of anodic potential immediately after the emission is arisen. The generation of the hole±electron pairs in Si and PS at the illumination of PS±Si cathode through both the rear and front side facilitates the process of AEE from PS. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.