The optical response of porous silicon affinity biosensors depends strongly on their nanomorphology because the sensing species does not completely fill the pores but is instead attached to the pore walls. The performance and sensitivity of porous silicon microcavity biosensors are calculated as a function of pore size using a simplified effective medium approximation. Excellent agreement is obtained between the model predictions and the experimental results after binding of aminopropyltriethoxysilane and glutaraldehyde in mesoporous and macroporous silicon microcavities. Detection of layers thinner than should be possible.
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The change in refractive index of the cylindrical pore after infiltration of a uniform layer coating is estimated by and , where is the volume of the coating layer and is the volume of the pore.
