Abstract

• The porous layers can be used as sacrificial layers due to the high reactivity of the material which leads to a new class of micromachined MEMS devices. The porous silicon (PS) has been fabricated on p-type silicon wafers by anodization, photolithographic metal assisted etching and metal assisted chemical etching techniques. The surface and cross-sectional inspections of the silicon wafers were performed with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the porosity of wafers is determined Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). It is found that the porous formation in silicon can control with adjustable metal concentration and time by metal assisted etching method. According to the characterization results the metal assisted chemical etching method gives better porous morphological structure which is suitable for MEMS and sensor applications.