Raman approach in porous silicon at 1.5 mu m

In the last years, the possibility of light generation and/or amplification in silicon, based on Raman emission, has achieved great results. However, some significant limitations, inherent to the physics of silicon, have been pointed out, too. In order to overcome these limitations, a possible option is to consider low dimensional silicon. Along this line of argument, an approach based on Raman scattering in porous silicon is presented. We prove two significant advantages with respect to silicon: the broadening of spontaneous Raman emission and the tuning of the Stokes shift. Finally, we discuss the prospect of Raman amplifier in porous silicon.