Patent ID: 8415555
Filing Date: 2013-04-09
Classification: C03C,H01L,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A method of fabricating a dimensional silica-based substrate or structure comprising a porous silicon layer, the method comprising: providing a silica glass substrate; extracting oxygen from the atomic elemental composition of the silica glass substrate by reacting a metallic gas with the silica glass substrate in a heated inert atmosphere to form a metal-oxygen complex along a surface of the silica glass substrate, wherein the inert atmosphere is heated to a reaction temperature sufficient to facilitate the oxygen extraction; removing the metal-oxygen complex from the surface of the silica glass substrate to yield a crystalline porous silicon surface portion of the silica glass substrate; forming one or more additional layers over the crystalline porous silicon surface portion of the silica glass substrate to yield a dimensional silica-based substrate or structure comprising the porous silicon layer; and densifying the dimensional silica-based structure by coating the crystalline porous silicon surface portion of the silica glass substrate with an additional glass or metal oxide layer and reacting a metallic gas with the crystalline porous surface portion of the glass substrate at the reaction temperature to yield a densified oxygen substrate.