Penetrating the oxide barrier in situ and separating freestanding porous anodic alumina films in one step.
A simple method for penetrating the barrier layer of an anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) film and for detaching the AAO film from residual Al foil was developed by reversing the bias voltage in situ after the anodization process is completed. With this technique, we have been able to obtain large pieces of free-standing AAO membranes with regular pore sizes of sub-10 nm. By combining Ar ion milling and wetting enhancement processes, Au nanowires were grown in the sub-10 nm pores of the AAO films. Further scaling down of the pore size and extension to the deposition of nanowires and nanotubes of materials other than Au should be possible by further optimizing this procedure.
Tian
Mingliang
M
Materials Research Institute and Center for Nanoscale Science, Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. mut1@psu.edu
Xu
Shengyong
S
Wang
Jinguo
J
Kumar
Nitesh
N
Wertz
Eric
E
Li
Qi
Q
Campbell
Paul M
PM
Chan
Moses H W
MH
Mallouk
Thomas E
TE