Effect of the anodization voltage on the porewidening rate of nanoporous anodic alumina

Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman (1) , Enric Garcia-Caurel (2) , Abel Santos (1) , Lluis F. Marsal (1) , Josep Pallares (1) , Josep Ferre-Borrull (1)

1 DEEEA - Department d'Enginyeria Electronica Elèctrica i Automàtica
2 LPICM - Laboratoire de physique des interfaces et des couches minces [Palaiseau]

A detailed study of the pore-widening rate of nanoporous anodic alumina layers as a function of the anodization voltage was carried out. The study focuses on samples produced under the same electrolyte and concentration but different anodization voltages within the self-ordering regime. By means of ellipsometry-based optical characterization, it is shown that in the porewidening process, the porosity increases at a faster rate for lower anodization voltages. This opens the possibility of obtaining three-dimensional nanostructured nanoporous anodic alumina with controlled thickness and refractive index of each layer, and with a refractive index difference of up to 0.24 between layers, for samples produced with oxalic acid electrolytes.

Keywords: ellipsometry; porous alumina; anodization voltage; nanostructures

Domains: Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Optics [physics.optics]

Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, Enric Garcia-Caurel, Abel Santos, Lluis F. Marsal, Josep Pallares, et al.. Effect of the anodization voltage on the porewidening rate of nanoporous anodic alumina. Nanoscale Research Letters, 2012, 7, pp.474. ⟨10.1186/1556-276X-7-474⟩. ⟨hal-00734352⟩