Laser dye impregnation of oxidized porous silicon on silicon wafers

Electrochemically etched silicon wafers can be utilized as transparent host matrices for a variety of luminescent media. Highly efficient (≳1%) photoluminescence across the entire visible range is demonstrated here using organic-dye-activated porous glass layers on Si wafers. Coumarin, xanthene, and oxazine dyes are used to obtain blue, green, yellow, and red emission at room temperature. Photopumped tunable lasers that can be integrated with silicon circuitry should be attainable with this approach.