Thermal properties of nanoporous silicon materials

Abstract: The specific thermal properties of porous silicon (PSi) are discussed in relation to its possible applications. Based on the summary of the experimental approach required for nanomaterials, it is shown that both thermal conductivity and capacity per unit volume of PSi are dramatically decreased in comparison to conventional thermal insulators. The induced thermo-acoustic emission effect has some advantageous features over the conventional transducers, including resonance-free and broad-band dynamic response with a significantly low distortion. The PSi device is useful as a digital speaker, for object sensing in air, as a noncontact actuator, for analyses of bio-acoustic communications, and as a chemical reactor array.