Highly ordered nanostructures on anodized and electropolished single crystal aluminum

COLL 326

Valery V. Konovalov, Material Methods LLC, 3720 Campus Dr., Suite C, Newport Beach, CA 92660 and Robert M. Metzger, Department of Chemistry, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL AL35487-0336.
Formation of highly ordered nanostructures on Al (100), (110) and (111) single crystals was studied for anodic pore growth and electropolishing. Electropolishing produced self-ordered shallow, height 2-7 nm, nanotopographies, which were different for different crystalline faces at the same electropolishing conditions; 40-65 nm periodic stripes on Al (110), and hexagonal mounds on Al (100) and Al (111). For Al (110) regular stripes extended over the whole sample area, about 1 cm2, demonstrating that this face is a promising template for sputtering. Anodic pore growth using modified multi-cycle Masuda process produced self-ordered pores at the same rate for all faces. The highest ordered domain area, about 100 µm2, was achieved on Al (100) face.