Photon confinement in one-dimensional photonic quantum-well structures of nanoporous silicon

Various combinations of periodically assembled nanoporous silicon layers with different refractive indices and thicknesses have been used to fabricate one-dimensional photonic quantum well structures, in which both the well and barrier regions consist of photonic crystals. The structures are operational in the regime of visible light. Quantized states resulting from the photonic confinement effect are observed, consistent with calculations using the transfer-matrix method. Behaviors of the photons in the structures can be well described by the effective wave-vector approach.