from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Series of anodization experiments was conducted on pure aluminium (99,95 Goodfellow) substrates with the aim to map the possibilities and evaluate available techniques. Oxalic acid electrolyte was used for anodization at different voltage levels ranging from 20 to 60V, while current was always measured continuously during the experiment. The influence of substrate surface treatment, time and grain size of the substrate was documented for as anodized oxide structures using FEG-SEM. Well aligned and evenly distributed pores of the diameters ranging 20- 35 nm were achieved. Extremely fine pores down to 10 nm were achieved using the step-down technique governed by current limitation. Further post-anodizing treatment was evaluated - pore widening by chemical and electrochemical etching, which resulted in pores 80nm wide. The feasibility of electrodeposition of metallic wires directly into the AAO structure without substrate removal was evaluated. DC, AC symmetric and non-symmetric voltage setups were used. The deposition experiments results varied strongly depending on the post anodization treatment. For combination of pore-widening after anodizing with step-down stage, the deposition of copper nanowires was achieved. For simple step-down procedure, creation of very fine copper particles was realized using non-symmetric AC deposition.
Keywords: Anodic alumina, AAO, anodization, electrodeposition, nanowires© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.