The preparation of La2O3@AAO with simple hydrothermal method under ambient pressure and the enhanced electrowetting-on-dielectric performance

Abstract

Anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) has unique nanostructure and is a conventional EWOD material. The lanthanum oxide, a kind of rare-earth oxide, has unique electronic structure and high dielectric constant, but its synthesis is still complicated. A simple method is proposed to prepare the La2O3@AAO nanocomposites through immersing highly ordered AAO films into La(NO3)3 solution under ambient temperature and pressure and subsequent annealing. It can be known that when the immersion temperature gets to 60 °C, the La2O3 starts to grow in AAO by the characterization of morphology, crystal phase structure and surface chemical composition. The measurement of EWOD performance indicates that the incorporation of La2O3 into AAO greatly enhances the capacitance about 2–3 orders of magnitude, and the large contact angle modulation is acquired. Furthermore, the EW properties of La2O3@AAO nanocomposites, such as relaxation time, critical voltage, can be easily modulated by the immersion temperature and time.