Revival of interband crystalline reflectance from nanocrystallites in porous silicon by immersion plating

We prepared porous silicon for which the UV reflectance (3.3–6 eV) is nearly eliminated, and exhibits no features at the Si interband bulk transitions 3.3, 4.3, and 5.5 eV. Plating with a thin layer of copper is found to cause recovery of the UV bulk-like crystalline reflectance and interband resonances. This provides evidence that the loss of crystalline absorption is reversible and is not due to a permanent loss in the crystalline structure. This may relate to a recent model in which the optical activity of ultra small nanocrystallites is produced by a new Si–Si crystalline configuration (or phase), distinct from but interconnected to the diamond-like configuration by a potential barrier.