Controlled Pore Diameter in Porous Anodic Aluminium Oxide Templates for Nanotube/Nanowire Fabrication

Noor Fariza Subari,Raja Kamarulzaman Raja Ibrahim,Samsudi Sakrani

doi:10.11113/mjfas.v8n4.153

Noor Fariza Subari, Raja Kamarulzaman Raja Ibrahim

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.11113/mjfas.v8n4.153

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Abstract

A porous anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) templates were fabricated on aluminium by electrodeposition method using a two-step anodization process. The AAO templates were anodized in 0.3 M oxalic acid solution by applying a constant voltage of 40V, which was afterward treated with chemical etching process in a mixed solution of 6% phosphoric acid and 1.8% chromic acid, respectively. The temperature was kept constant in 15oC during the anodization process and the anodization time were done between 20 to 60 min. All the samples were characterized using by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to study the surface morphology of AAO templates. It was found that the pore diameters of AAO templates can be controlled by changing the anodizing time. The influence of the electropolishing were also discussed. Highly uniform self-ordered AAO template were effectively formed from these polished foils via an anodizing process.

Highlights

One-dimensional nanostructures have been recently attracted due to their potential applications, unique properties and symmetric structure in nanodevices include field emitters, hydrogen storage and molecular sieves [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
We report a simple method to fabricate Anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) templates by electrodeposition using oxalic acid and chemical etching with mixed solution of 6% phosphoric acid and 1.8% chromic acid, respectively
According to the result, electropolishing of aluminium foils before electrochemical anodization is of paramount importance to the self-organization of AAO pores which influence the regularity, pore diameter and pore density of AAO templates

Summary

INTRODUCTION

One-dimensional nanostructures have been recently attracted due to their potential applications, unique properties and symmetric structure in nanodevices include field emitters, hydrogen storage and molecular sieves [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The template method are simplest technique to get uniform and ordered pore structure. T he first research of AAO templates conducted by Masuda et al and Fukuda et al [9] in 1995 were synthesized perfect hexagonal pore structure porous alumina using the two-step anodization procedure. Many researcher were successfully developed fabrication of AAO templates on different substrates such as silicon wafers and glass [10] and using acid [11,12,13] and alkaline [14] electrolytes for anodizing process. As the original size and shape of the AAO template determine the uniformity, density and size of the sensing nanostructures, it is essential to have an accurate control over the fabrication process [17]. We study the influence of electropolishing on the surface morphology of Al foils

EXPERIMENTAL

Morphology of porous film

AAO pore diameter

CONCLUSION