Improved contacts on a porous silicon layer by electroless nickel plating and copper thickening

In this paper stable, low-resistance contacts on porous silicon have been realized by electroless nickel deposition from a very weakly alkaline solution followed by copper thickening. The porous silicon layer after nickel deposition has been analysed by x-ray diffraction, which shows that a porous silicon nickel structure is successfully achieved from the bath. FESEM studies have been performed which show that the surface morphology of the porous silicon layer remains intact after nickel–copper plating. The mean roughness of the porous silicon surface has been found to improve after nickel plating from the AFM studies. Electrical characterization shows that the J–V characteristics of the nickel–copper-plated porous silicon lateral structure contact is fairly linear up to a certain value of applied voltage. Specific contact resistance of the nickel on porous silicon has been measured for the first time and has been found to be of an order of magnitude lower than that of other metals. No significant ageing is visible in this electroless nickel contact contrary to the vacuum-evaporated nickel contact.