Structural and nitrogen gas adsorption-desorption studies of bragg grating waveguide fabricated on porous silicon nanostructure

Fabrication and structural analysis of Bragg grating waveguide on porous silicon were presented in this work. The Bragg grating structure was directly etched on porous silicon. Multilayer structure of porous silicon with alternating values of thickness and refractive index were determined. Nitrogen gas adsorption-desorption is a non-destructive method to determine the fabricated Bragg grating's interaction with gases. It is known that porous silicon is a high potential in-situ gas sensor due to the strong tube capillary effect and enormous surface area for molecular binding and detection. Thus, specific surface area and porosity of fabricated Bragg grating are also in the scope of this study. Good agreement of pore size distribution and multilayer thickness/refractive index achieved from adsorption-desorption technique and ellipsometer measurement respectively when comparing with estimations from field emission scanning electron microscopy. This Bragg grating waveguide has a big potential as gas sensor in many areas such as aerospace and in industries particularly.