Mesoporous silicon: Semiconductor with new talents

Silicon is the best-known semiconductor material. However, controlled nanostructuring drastically alters the material’s properties. Using a specially developed etching apparatus, a team has now produced mesoporous silicon layers with countless tiny pores and investigated their electrical and thermal conductivity. For the first time, the researchers elucidated the electronic transport mechanism in this mesoporous silicon. The material has great potential for applications and could also be used to thermally insulate qubits for quantum computers.