Vertical hybrid microcavity based on a polymer layer sandwiched between porous silicon photonic crystals

A vertical hybrid microcavity is fabricated by sandwiching a polymer layer between distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) composed of porous silicon photonic crystals. The DBRs are made by electrochemical etching of Si and consist of alternating porous Si layers of high and low porosity, the top DBR being a freestanding film. The hybrid microcavity demonstrates a deep microcavity mode placed within a 200 nm wide photonic band gap, and reveals a many-fold enhancement of the third-order nonlinearity of the microcavity layer. The fabrication technique employed is rather simple, enabling the use of a variety of functional materials as the microcavity spacer. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3245319]