Surface plasmon polaritons in a composite system of porous silicon and gold

A composite system of silicon quantum dots and gold particles with properties periodically changing along the surface (i.e., a system exhibiting the properties of a diffraction grating) is obtained by a one-step metal-assisted chemical etching. The spectral and angular dependences of the photoresponse for the composite system on single-crystal silicon are studied. The photoresponse peaks were observed, which behavior (the dependence on the parameters of the diffraction grating, wavelength and incidence angles of light) is attributed to the excitation of plasmon-polariton modes at the surface of the composite system with the diffraction grating. At the same time, the obtained values of the wave vectors for these modes are smaller than those calculated for plasmon polaritons excited at the interface between air and metal (gold) diffraction grating.