Meekins, Benjamin H, Ya-Cheng Lin, Joseph S Manser, Khachatur Manukyan, Alexander S Mukasyan, Prashant Kamat V, and Paul J McGinn. 2013. “Photoactive Porous Silicon Nanopowder”. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 5 (8): 2943-51.
Abstract
Bulk processing of porous silicon nanoparticles (nSi) of 50–300 nm size and surface area of 25–230 m2/g has been developed using a combustion synthesis method. nSi exhibits consistent photoresponse to AM 1.5 simulated solar excitation. In confirmation of photoactivity, the films of nSi exhibit prompt bleaching following femtosecond laser pulse excitation resulting from the photoinduced charge separation. Photocurrent generation observed upon AM 1.5 excitation of these films in a photoelectrochemical cell shows strong dependence on the thickness of the intrinsic silica shell that encompasses the nanoparticles and hinders interparticle electron transfer.