Silicon photonic structures with embedded polymers for novel sensing methods

Abstract

At present time research and development of a new generation of optical sensors using conjugated polymers, in particular sensors of explosives are actively underway. Nevertheless, the problems of the sensitivity, selectivity, and stability of such sensors are still of great interest. One of the ways to solve the problem is the creation of luminescence sensors based on photonic crystals with a high specific surface area, which have significant sorption ability and allow to effective modulate emission properties of luminophores. In this paper, porous silicon microcavities with embeded organic polyphenylenevinylene- (PPV) and polyfluorene- (PF) type polymers were created. It was shown that polymer infiltration in porous silicon microcavities leads to modification of their luminescence properties, which is expressed in narrowing of the emission spectrum and changing of its directional pattern. It was demonstrated that such structures exhibit sensitivity to saturated vapors of trinitrotoluene. The structures proposed can be treated as a basis for development of new type of sensors used for detection of vapors of nitroaromatic compounds.