Fabrication of high aspect ratio microtube arrays for 2D photonic crystals

This paper describes the fabrication of 2D photonic crystals made of high aspect ratio Si microtube arrays. The tube fabrication is based on the creation of macropore arrays in n-doped Si substrates via photoassisted electrochemical etching. These macropores are successively filled using thermal oxidation and chemical vapor depostion. The substrate material is partially removed by a KOH immersion, and the filled macropores are exposed, forming arrays of microtubes with very high aspect ratios of up to 1:60. Point and line defects are introduced into some of the tube arrays by selectively omitting macropores during the fabrication. The mechanical properties of the tubes were investigated by measuring their stiffness and elastic modulus using an atomic force microscope based setup. Additionally, the resonant modes of the microtubes were simulated with FEM methods. Optical simulations reveal that these tube arrays form 2D photonic crystals, which can contain bandgaps for TM polarized light. It is also shown that the optical properties of the photonic crystals depend strongly on the tube filling factor. Adjusting the filling factor of the tubes allows tuning of the photonic properties of the tube arrays.