  Porous silicon, obtained by electrochemical etching, has been used as a
substrate for the growth of nanoperforated Nb thin films. The films, deposited
by UHV magnetron sputtering on the porous Si substrates, inherited their
structure made of holes of 5 or 10 nm diameter and of 10 to 40 nm spacing,
which provide an artificial pinning structure. The superconducting properties
were investigated by transport measurements performed in the presence of
magnetic field for different film thickness and substrates with different
interpore spacing. Perpendicular upper critical fields measurements present
peculiar features such as a change in the H_c2(T) curvature and oscillations in
the field dependence of the superconducting resistive transition width at H=1
Tesla. This field value is much higher than typical matching fields in
perforated superconductors, as a consequence of the small interpore distance.
